Generations: Waves of Time
by Charlotte1
Summary: Leshia, Katie and Rachel are beginning their fifth year at Hogwarts in the hope that they have put the perilous adventures of their previous school years behind them. With the dark rising and the Malfoys under threat, this might become a distant dream.
1. Part One

Title: **Generations: Waves of Time**

_Part __V in my Generations series_

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing but the words and the original characters. The rest of this world belongs to the talented JK Rowling, so please don't sue, I have nothing

**Summary:** Leshia, Rachel, Katie and all their friends are looking forward to a relaxing year for a change. They don't feel they can handle any of the adventures their previous years at Hogwarts have had in stall for them. Unfortunately for the girls, it would seem they have no choice and after finding a mysterious stone on the beach the three teenagers find themselves locked into a series of events that will shape the world as they know it.

**The **_**next generation**_** and their families:**

The Malfoy Family – Draco, Hermione, **Leshia** (15), Evie (1)

The Potter Family – Harry, Ginny, **Katie** (15), Michael (14)

The Weasley Family – Ron, Lavender (divorced), **Rachel** (15), Hermia (14), Emelia (13), Ria (11), Daniella (10), Harmony (10), Matthew (5)

**IMPORTANT NOTE:** My series started in 2002, before books 6 and 7 were released. I have worked round the events in Book 6, but due to my set up and characters, it (naturally) diverges greatly from the canon story of Book 7. Here is a brief summary of the key differences between Canon and my Alternative version of events. **MASSIVE spoiler warning for Book 7 if you have not read it**: Draco is caught and joins the Order. Harry misread Voldemort and they missed one crucial Horcrux meaning when Hary and Draco teamed up to destroy the dark lord he was not entirely vanquished. Hermione falls in love with Draco and this drives Ron to get back with Lavender. Snape is not killed, but he remains alive to ressurect Dumbledore as was his plan all along. Fred does not die. Lupin and Tonks do not die. Percy does die after turning back to the 'good side'. Lucius remains Voldemort's right hand man, he is not dis-wanded.

**Generations Part V: Waves of Time**

**Part I**

The summer had been long and hot. Teenagers strolled through the bustling shops of Diagon Alley dressed in all manner of skimpy shorts and tops earning themselves disdainful glances from their elders. Soon these youngsters would be trapped once more within the Hogwarts walls, destined for another year of studies. Most of them were looking forward to it, but there was one very unlikely candidate who seemed unready to make the journey northwards once more.

Alecia Malfoy wanted the summer to go on forever. Stood now behind the till at Flourish and Blotts the bookshop, Leshia was foregoing the summer sunshine to make amends for two months of wanton self-indulgence. Along with the her childhood friends Leshia had spent the summer drifting between her house and those of her friends, relishing in late night bonfires, sleepovers, parties and evenings out in the Rusty Cauldron's beer garden. The girl had never enjoyed herself as much as she had these last eight weeks and now, she wasn't ready to give up this life of freedom.

Leshia's mother, Hermione Malfoy, had long ago procured the job at the bookshop for her daughter in order to enable the girl to earn a little more pocket money. Even though at first she had strongly objected, eventually Leshia had come round to the idea and dutifully she had spent the last two summers toiling away behind the till or in the stock room. This summer though, had been different. In fact, this was the first full day Leshia had put in at the shop in over five weeks. Usually a very loyal and proud sort of girl, Leshia was determined to set things right and so had vowed to spend the rest of the week helping in the shop voluntarily and without pay. Old Flourish and Blott, descendants of the original founders of the shop, had been amused by Leshia's changing moods this summer, though neither tried to stop the headstrong girl from doing as she pleased. They knew the girl well enough to know that only a fool stood in Alecia Malfoy's way.

It had been a long day, fraught with visits from peers and friends from Hogwarts. Leshia felt she'd been dropped well and truly in the deep end of the school's gossip grapevine and had more information than she knew what to do with. Certainly Katie Potter, one of Leshia's age-old friends and a resident Hogwarts socialite, would do anything to get hold of the fresh gossip, but Leshia wasn't sure if she would be able to remember it all. The two girls, along with the third member of their trio, Rachel Weasley were all meeting later that evening at the last barbeque of the summer at the Burrow. No doubt Katie would be furious if Leshia forgot any of the juicy details she had heard and so the youngster was frantically scribbling things down on a spare stub of paper.

The shop had been quiet for the past hour, its only customer being a very slow old woman who spent at least forty minutes trawling through the books detailing how to deal with magical pests. Leshia might have been able to understand the woman's sluggishness had there been an aisle full of the books, but as the teenager had directed the old biddy to a section of the shop housing only three books she had been quite bemused by the whole thing. In the end the customer had left empty-handed leaving Leshia pouting in annoyance. The whole episode had caused her to forget half of Tina Dackshaw's story about the short-lived romance that had recently blossomed and self-destructed between Arabella Short and Paul Lambert and so now Leshia was desperately trying to write down the few snippets she could remember.

The door to the shop tinkled and the door creaked open. Leshia didn't look up from her notes, hoping the customer would be able to amuse themselves for a few moments.

"I'll be with you in a minute," she called out distractedly. The customer didn't respond and after several moments Leshia realised that they hadn't moved either. Quickly the girl looked up and met the peculiar eyes of a person she had no desire to see. "Oh, it's you."

The tall youth at the door looked the girl behind the till up and down before a dark smile spread onto his handsome face: Julius Black was looking more handsome than ever and it pained Leshia deeply to see it. It would be much easier to convince her friends he was evil were he not so good looking.

"Afternoon," the boy spoke in a voice edging ever deeper towards manhood. Leshia almost shuddered at the sound of it. Though he was four weeks shy of sixteen Julius Black seemed far older than his years and he managed to make Leshia feel like a child with a mere word. How she hated him.

"Hi," she replied stiltedly. For a while the pair eyed one another; Leshia noticing that Julius had trimmed his long dark hair back and the boy noting that Alecia Malfoy seemed to have grown to an average height at last, after a lifetime of looking up at her classmates.

"What are you looking at?" Leshia demanded eliciting a smile from the boy at the door. He had stared too long it would seem.

"I've come for our textbooks," Julius replied easily. "Last time I checked this was a bookshop. Have I come to the wrong place?"

"Very funny," Leshia grumbled and she strolled out from behind the counter, shoving her notes safely away in her pocket. Julius' eyes followed her hand to her jeans pocket and lingered there for a moment. "Fifth year books right?"

"And two sets of the third year books too if you wouldn't mind. You know, for Magnus and Leona."

"Yeah I guessed that," Leshia countered curtly, before she turned on heal and picked up a wicker basket. Without glancing back at the grinning young man the girl dove into the aisles of the shop leaving Julius behind. Her skin crawled in the boy's presence and for the umpteenth time she wished he would simply cease to exist. Katie and Rachel hounded her about her dislike for him, stating all the times he had saved her life as a reason for being kinder to him. Leshia growled angrily at them when they dared to suggest such a thing, demanding to know why she should give Julius Black the time of day when he made it quite obvious he didn't want to keep stepping in to help her and did so only out of a private duty he owed and had no desire to speak about with Leshia. His secrecy was what irritated Leshia the most. Why couldn't he just tell her things straight for once?

Before the summer holidays, towards the end of their fourth year at Hogwarts Leshia witnessed cracks in Julius Black's composure for the first time. He had risked his neck to save her from a team of aurors hell-bent on arresting her and had shown her a passion she had never dreamed existed within his cool exterior. The enigma she called him and that he certainly was.

After expertly scooping up the books that had been listed on the fifth and third year booklists Leshia returned to the counter and started racking up the prices on the till. Julius was nowhere to be seen, but just as Leshia was coming to the last book in the pile he appeared with a small pile of his own. The blonde girl fought hard not to roll her eyes and instead took the pile from the Slytherin enigma.

"Quidditch?" Leshia spluttered in surprise when she saw the title of the first book on the pile: _The Best of the Goals and Glory from 2014-2013_. "You?" Julius frowned deeply and took the book from the girl as soon as she had typed the price into the till.

"You don't know everything Malfoy," the boy uttered darkly, wiping a stray piece of fluff from the dust jacket of the new book. Leshia narrowed her eyes at him and continued through the pile.

"I know you don't give a damn about quidditch."

"Oh yes? And how do you know that?" The boy's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Well, let's see, you never try out for the team, you rarely come to matches and I never see you joining in with that spoilt brat Allseyer and his cronies when they're going on about the latest matches they've been to," Leshia explained. For a moment Julius watched Leshia with narrowed eyes before his let out a frustrated sigh.

"Well by your logic then the fact that I never see you doing your homework, you spend most of our lessons daydreaming and for the most part seem quite thick-headed when I see you speaking to _your_ friends should suggest that you ought to fail every one of your exams."

"Why you little…"

"But as I hear you generally do quite well at school then maybe we shouldn't go jumping to conclusions about one another don't you think?"

Leshia chewed hard on the insides of her cheeks, before she nodded firmly. The sooner she stopped talking with Julius Black the sooner he would leave and so without another word the girl finished racking up his books. Julius paid in silence and left the girl two sickles as a tip, which annoyed her more than she had imagined a two-sickle tip could ever annoy anyone before he picked up his packages and turned to leave.

"There's one more thing," the boy spoke when he was half way to the door. Leshia sighed witheringly and glared forcefully as Julius turned around to meet her gaze.

"What is it?"

Her anger seemed to ignite her face with passion and for a moment Julius stood and admired her. Alecia Malfoy had become quite beautiful it would seem. Gone were the impish childish good looks and in their place a new womanly beauty had emerged. There was no denying the scrawny teenager was still a very young girl, but there was something in her aura that had changed and matured.

"It's about what happened before the summer," the boy finally spoke in a soft voice. Leshia bored into him with her icy grey gaze, urging him to carry on. "I want you to stay very quiet about what happened in the woods."

"What?" Leshia demanded. "What do you mean stay very quiet?"

"Well should my fellow housemates hear about my defending you then I would find myself in a very tricky situation. Do you understand?"

For a moment Leshia glowered at the boy, before a broad sly smile grew on her face.

"You mean if I dob you in to Damian Allseyer they'll give you a hard time?" Julius Black stayed very silent, his own eyes narrowing once more while he regarded the impetuous girl before him. Yes Leshia may have become beautiful in the weeks that had passed since school had ended, but she was just as pig-headed and childish as ever it would seem.

"I'm going to say this only once Malfoy, so listen very carefully. If you tell people at school about what I did for you when the aurors were trying to find you I will make sure everyone knows about all those nasty Malfoy secrets you and your father like to think have been kept in the family."

Leshia's lips parted in surprise and she stepped backwards from the till.

"What?" she demanded, her voice shaking in anger and concern. "What do you know?"

"A lot more than you," the boy countered quickly. "Do we have an agreement?"

Leshia's mind flooded back to the memories of her third year when throughout the year a creature of darkness had stalked her, brining with it the memories of her dear father's sordid and murderous past. Leshia had since come to terms with the fact that Draco Malfoy, her own dad, had once been a murderer and a traitor, but to have it hinted at by this cretin made her heart tremble. How dare he! How dare Julius Black speak so lightly about the darkest secrets in her heart!

"Yes," she spat angrily. "Yes we have an agreement. Now get out."

Julius Black smiled briefly, a look of amusement clear on his face, before he nodded and turned to leave the shop. Leshia glared at him as he opened the door and strolled out into the sunny afternoon leaving her raw and shaky. Her mood could have continued throughout the evening bringing a dampener on everyone's good time had Hermione Malfoy not chosen this exact moment to walk into the shop with little Evie, Leshia's one-year-old sister, clutched firmly to her hip.

Leshia looked up as the bell tinkled, expecting Julius to return for another round of insults, but upon seeing her mother and baby sister the girl felt her bad mood ease away leaving only happiness in its place.

"Hi mum!" the girl called out happily and she ran forward to take Evie from Hermione's arms. The tired mother readily gave in and dropped down on one of the reading benches with an exhausted, yet contented, sigh.

"What have you been up to?" Leshia asked amusedly, noting the oodles of packages hanging from her mother's arms.

"Lih! Lish!" the baby in her arms cried out jubilantly, flailing her fat little arms in the direction of her older sister.

"Yes hi Evie," Leshia giggled, kissing her sister's nose. "I'm happy to see you too."

"Oh darling," Hermione exhaled. "It's so hot out there! I think I might expire if I have to go out there again."

Leshia grinned and dropped down next to her mother, offering her a kiss on the cheek as she did.

"Well I hate to say it mum, but we're not exactly home yet and the shop's not attached to the floo network. So unless you're planning on apparating and leaving me with this one and all this shopping then you're stuck I'm afraid."

"Oh I don't know," Hermione mused aloud. "You wouldn't mind escorting Evie home would you while I nip off for a quick gin and tonic in the garden would you?" Leshia laughed happily and shook her head.

"Fat chance. What are you doing here anyway? I thought I was supposed to be meeting you lot at home before we go to the burrow."

"Yes, that was the plan," her mother explained, before she started rifling through an enormous handbag. Leshia adored her mother's handbag. It was abnormally large by muggle standards, but had the added benefit of being magically enchanted to seem bottomless. Hermione was able to store within the bag everything Leshia had ever needed (including, on separate occasions, an umbrella, a small fold out table and a tennis racket) and secretly the girl had started coveting it and devising ways to make it her own.

Eventually Hermione pulled out a slightly crumpled looking letter, which bore the unmistakable Hogwarts crest. Leshia frowned and took the letter and turned it over in her hands. It was addressed to her.

"But I already received my letter," she pondered out loud before she looked up to see Hermione beaming at her.

"I know. That's why I brought it straight over." Leshia frowned even more.

"What do you think it is?"

"I have no idea darling," Hermione lied and she reached over to take her youngest daughter from her eldest's lap. Baby Evie had seemed intent on shredding the letter from the moment it arrived and now it was brought before her once more had instantly reached out with two clammy hands to take hold of it. The baby complained and reached out for the heavy parchment, but Leshia pulled it back and pulled the way seal off the back off the envelope.

"I don't like the way you're grinning at me," the teenager grumbled, before she pulled the letter out and started to read:

_Dear Leshia,_

_ It is with a great pleasure that I am writing to inform you that prior to the summer holidays Mila Evanovitch, the Hogwarts quidditch team captain came to me and told me who should replace her in the new academic year. As you know Mila has now left Hogwarts and has moved onto bigger and better things, but before she left she told me that she had selected a successor to captain the successful Gryffindor team. She was absolutely certain that there was only one person right for the job and that person is you Leshia. _

_As of September, you will be our new Gryffindor team captain. You will need to organise trials to replace any members who have left and you will also need to organise training on a weekly basis if you intend to keep the team in fine form this year. Madam Hooch has assured me that should you require any assistance on coaching she is more than happy to give you advice. _

_The best of luck Leshia and I look forwards to seeing you develop in your new role as captain,_

_Kind regards,_

_ Albus Dumbledore_

Leshia read and then reread the letter once more, a broad grin growing on her face until finally she looked up at her mother with an enormous smile. Hermione though, was looking confused as she sifted through the envelope's now empty contents. It was clear she had been expecting more.

"What is it?" Leshia asked, her smile fading for a moment. "What are you looking for?"

"Nothing," Hermione quickly countered, before she forced a smile back onto her face. "What does it say darling?"

"Professor Dumbledore has made _me_ Gryffindor captain mum! Me, the captain! Can you believe it?"

"Oh Leshia! That's wonderful news!" Hermione exclaimed and she reached forward and pulled her daughter into a warm embrace. "Your father will be so proud."

Leshia rolled her eyes fondly and pulled back, wanting to ask why her mother hadn't said that_ she _was proud of her, but instead she said nothing and climbed to her feet.

"Come on, let's go, my shift finished five minutes ago," the girl announced cheerily, before she bellowed into the shop, "Mr Blott?" After a few moments a muffled reply sounded,

"Yes?"

"I'm off Mr Blott," Leshia called out. "It's five o' clock. I'll see you tomorrow."

There came a series of muffled crashes before suddenly Mr Blott himself appeared in the doorway to the stock room.

"Splendid Leshia, have a lovely time at the barbeque. Oh, hello Hermione, can I help you with anything? We've just had a marvellous new selection of Runic dictionaries come in, can I interest you in having a quick peek to check they're up to scratch?"

Hermione looked like she very much wanted to agree, but seeing the pleading look on her daughter's face she instead smiled and shook her head.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you down Regus, this one here's had a hard day's work and she deserves a rest don't you think?" Mr Blott turned a broad smile on young Leshia before he nodded.

"Too right, well spoken my dear, now be off with you before you see what I've just had delivered from Rome." Hermione craned her neck to see a large book-like shape covered in a faded dustsheet before Leshia took hold of her arm and started dragging her away.

"Tomorrow mum, you can see tomorrow!"

It took a lot more cajoling to finally get Hermione to leave the shop, but soon the mother and her two daughters were walking into the bright and airy front hall of their Dockstreet townhouse. As soon as they walked in Leshia sprinted up the stairs to change into a less stifling outfit choice before she careened downstairs once more to find her mother in the arms of a tall ash blond unshaven man by the hearth.

"Yuck," the girl complained as soon as she walked in, before she walked over to her baby sister who was watching their parents with interest. "Evie's watching you know!"

A deep throaty laughter escaped the girl's long-suffering father before he turned his grey eyes on his oldest daughter.

"I hear you've got good news," Draco Malfoy remarked amusedly. Leshia grinned stupidly for a moment before she lifted Evie to her hip and rushed over to their parents' side.

"Did mum tell you?" the girl garbled through a manic smile. "Dumbledore made me the quidditch captain for Gryffindor!"

"So I hear, congratulations sweetheart," Draco replied fondly, reaching out his arm to sling it about the growing girl's shoulders. She was as tall as Hermione now, which seemed so unnatural to the father who had always known his daughter to be a tiny little thing. "You'll do a great job. They couldn't have chosen a better replacement."

"Dad," Leshia complained in feigned aspiration. "Don't get all soppy. So, are we going or not?"

"After you," Draco chuckled and he reached forward to take little Evie from the girl's arms, which allowed the teenager to step past and climb into the grate. Leshia grabbed a handful of floo powder and dropped it purposefully into the hearth.

"The Burrow!" the girl called out clearly, before she was gone in a swirl of green flames leaving her parents smiling after her. Draco turned now on his wife, whose face had fallen slightly after their daughter's departure. The tall man at her side laughed heartily before pulling his wife into a one armed embrace, taking care not to flatten their youngest daughter.

"I hope you don't show Leshia how disappointed you are she didn't receive a prefect's letter this morning," he told her amusedly.

"Oh of course I won't Draco," Hermione complained. "It's just you can bet that as soon as we arrive at the burrow Katie's going to flash her badge at everyone and tell us she's been made prefect."

Draco laughed even louder and shook his head.

"So?" he laughed. "What does it matter? Leshia will just boast right back that she's been made Gryffindor captain. I know you wanted her to be made prefect darling, but come on, think rationally for a moment. Who in their right mind would chose Leshia over Katie to be a prefect?"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders, but a grin was steadily growing on her beautiful face.

"You may have a point there."

"Oh I may have a point?" Draco uttered gently, bringing his wife close to his chest so that he might kiss the side of her neck.

"Leshia would never have chosen being a prefect over being the quidditch captain," the beautiful woman sighed. "So I suppose I can only be happy for her."

"Well spoken," Draco stated happily, before he kissed Hermione firmly. Seeing this display of affection Evie started gabbling nonsensically, though Draco could understand from her babbling that she was delighted to see her parents so happy with one another. For the majority of her young life Draco and Hermione had endured a strained painful period of their marriage, but in recent months those days seemed a thing of a nightmarish past neither ever wished to revisit.

Draco flooed through to the Burrow slightly ahead of Hermione and soon found himself emerging in a sea of redheads large and small. Most of them called out cheerily when he arrived, but there was one in particular who immediately rushed to his side and swept him up into a hug.

"Draco! I thought I saw Leesh sweep through here a second ago. I was just coming to find you," the young woman exclaimed before she let go and beamed at the tall man.

"Hi Ginny," Draco responded warmly, his smile a genuine one at the sight of his and Hermione's dear friend. "I hope you're well."

"Oh very well now you're here. Oh look at you!" Ginny's eyes had since moved from Draco's amused eyes to the pudgy pretty face of the baby in his arms. "Evie you are so pretty! Can I?" This last part she addressed to the father once more, who after kissing the side of his baby's head handed her over to his wife's broody best friend. Moments later Hermione appeared, smiling broadly the moment she laid eyes on Ginny cuddling baby Evie.

"Ginny my darling!" Hermione exclaimed and she pulled her best friend into an embrace. "Have one of your own for heaven's sake and stop trying to steal mine."

Loud laughter filled the room as all the Weasleys turned to stare at Ginny's pink cheeks.

"Well if you can convince Harry then by all means," the younger woman finally chuckled, giving Hermione a conspiratorial smile. It was old news that Ginny desperately wanted a new baby, but had come across a stumbling block in the form of her husband Harry Potter, who had no desire to have another child to add to the two they already had.

"How are the children?" Hermione asked, her question loaded with a silent demand to find out whether her suspicions were correct. At the sight of Hermione's keen gaze Draco rolled his eyes and darted from their sides to find something more entertaining than the battle of who-had-the-most-accomplished-child that was about to unfold.

"Oh very well," Ginny replied breezily. "Katie had some good news today, she's been made a prefect."

"I knew it!" Hermione crowed, though a broad smile remained fixedly on her face. Ginny giggled. "Congratulations."

"And Leshia? I hear she had some good news too today?"

"How did you hear already?"

"She screamed it out so the whole house could hear the moment she arrived," Ginny laughed. "I feel sorry for poor Rachel. With those two hogging the limelight she'll have had enough of them before the evening's through!"

XXX

Rachel Weasley sat back with a broad smile on her face while she watched her friends talk over one another. While the tall raven-haired girl was trying to explain about the perks attached to being one of the school's prefects the smaller blonder one of the two rattled on about quidditch tryouts and training sessions. Katie seemed particularly enamoured with the idea of having a private bathroom away from the shower queues of Gryffindor tower whereas Leshia was describing in fine detail how each training session would unfold.

Only Rachel listened to what was being said. She was quite happy to sit back and listen to her best friends, to share in their enjoyment and their jubilation. There wasn't a trace of envy in her mind, as Rachel had long known that these two would undergo these separate journeys. Yes, she had thought Leshia would become quidditch captain a little later on in their school careers, but she had always known Katie would be made prefect in their fifth year. Who in their right mind wouldn't make Katie a prefect? The girl lived and breathed the rules and spent her life trying to keep her wilder best friends under control.

As though to demonstrate this point, Katie was reeling off the rules she would find most difficult to police as a prefect. Leshia had stopped pretending to listen a while ago leaving Rachel to burst out laughing when she heard her cousin's plans.

"How on earth are you going to stop people from daydreaming during lessons?"

Katie glowed bright pink while Rachel got her breath back. Leshia, who had jumped when Rachel burst out laughing, was now watching the raven-haired girl with a frown.

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked. "You'd be stabbing all your best friends in the back."

"Yeah," Rachel agreed happily. "And besides, you daydream with the best of them during History of Magic."

"Well I was saying I probably _wouldn't_ be able to make people stick to that rule," Katie grumbled. "The others should be much easier."

Rachel and Leshia exchanged a worried glance before they shuffled forward to sit right in front of their taller friend.

"Katie, you know how um…well, you know we're like…" Rachel fumbled, while at her side Leshia rolled her eyes.

"She's trying to say you do you we break the rules right?" the blonde girl cut in. Katie's cheeks grew even redder and she fumbled with a bit of rug between her fingers. "I mean, you're not going to dock housepoints from us are you?"

Katie's cheeks had gone the colour of Rachel's hair while her two best friends stared at her in disbelief.

"Well…"

"Katie!" the other two exclaimed in shock.

"You'd never dob us in to McGonagall. I know you wouldn't!" Rachel asserted firmly, eliciting a furious nod from the blonde girl at her side. Katie seemed to be fascinated by the carpet underneath her fingers.

"Look," she finally spoke, glancing up to meet the fierce expressions on her friends' faces, before she looked down again sharply. "I'd never dob you in, you're right, but I don't want to have my job taken away either! If I see you two doing something that totally flouts the rules I have to do something about it, so the only available option is…"

"Being a backstabbing bitch?" Leshia cut in, earning herself a glare from the other two. She grimaced at what she had said and shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"That's okay," Katie sighed. "I know that's what I'll be if I take housepoints away from you guys. Just, look please, if you have to break the rules, can you at least make sure I'm not in the room when you do it? What I don't know can't hurt right?"

"Yeah," Rachel replied slowly. "But Katie, that means we won't be able to hang out together all the time. I'm not sure how I feel about that."

A sad silence enveloped the three friends while down below someone was bellowing that dinner was being served. Avoiding one another's eyes, the girls climbed to their feet and joined the throng moving steadily downwards. An enormous magically enhanced barbeque had been set up in the garden right next to a small muggle contraption that Arthur was tending with utmost care. As the girls emerged into the warm evening they arrived just in time to see Molly dashing across the garden with her wand outstretched. She managed to douse the flames licking at Arthur's eyebrows before they managed to do too much damage.

"Are you okay grandpa?" Katie asked nervously while Leshia and Rachel suppressed a pair of sniggers at her side. Arthur turned a broad sooty smile on the three girls and nodded.

"It's exciting stuff this beebeequeing!" he gushed jubilantly. Leshia, who had been examining the charcoaled meat on the metal tray snorted, but managed to turn it into a cough.

"It's called barbequing grandpa," Rachel chuckled.

"That's where you're wrong my dear girl," Arthur countered with a broad grin. "I've been reading up all about muggle barbeques and I know for a fact that they call it a beebeeque. In fact, my colleague Jocasta Raindrop was invited to a beebeeque just last week."

"Girls!"

The trio of friends looked up to see Ginny waving them over from a veritable mountain of food over by a long trestle table that had magically appeared in the garden.

"Looks like we're needed Grandpa," Katie apologised and the three girls quickly scuttled away before bursting into hushed giggles. When they reached Ginny's side the girls were ushered into serving duty and spent the next half an hour doling out all manner of tasty grilled foods to the vast array of Weasleys and friends that had gathered for the occasion. After what seemed an age the girls finally managed to serve themselves, before they rushed over to a private spot to carry on their chat. None of them wanted to continue the awkward conversation from the bedroom, so thankfully there was a more pleasing topic to hand: Ryan and Julia's wedding.

"Why're they holding it in the middle of the bloody ocean?" Rachel murmured through a mouthful of chicken drumstick. Leshia shrugged her slender shoulders.

"I dunno, I didn't plan it."

"God, the pair of you!" Katie grumbled fondly. "They're not holding it in the middle of the ocean Rach, they're holding it on a beautiful tropical island!"

Rachel and Leshia exchanged a perplexed glance.

"What's wrong with England?" the red-haired girl asked curiously.

"Look around us," Katie countered causing all three girls to glance about themselves at the sunny meadow hopefully. "It's not exactly breathtaking around here is it?"

"I didn't think Ryan would be that soppy," Leshia complained. "But it will be cool to get away for a bit."

"Are both your parents coming Leesh?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah and Evie too. We'll be leaving tomorrow evening. Apparently it'll be morning there…"

"Eleven in the morning to be precise."

"Yes thank you Katie! So it'll be morning anyway, that'll give us enough time to get ready. I'm so happy they invited you two as well. It would've sucked being there on my own with all those ex-upper years."

"Oh come on," Rachel scoffed happily. "You'd have loved it! All that attention… Hey!" The flame-haired girl glowered at Leshia as she picked a chicken bone off her jeans and flicked it into the grass.

"I've got more where that came from," Leshia warned with a sweet smile. Rachel grinned back and reached out to flick a dollop of mayonnaise onto the blonde girl's arm. Before they could get out of hand Katie spoke up firmly,

"And when we get back we're meeting up with everybody at the Cauldron for one last round of butterbeers before school right?"

Rachel sat up sharply and nodded. Her smile had become dreamy and for a moment Leshia sniggered while she wiped the white dollops of mayonnaise off her arm with a napkin.

"Looking forward to it are we?" she asked conspiratorially. Rachel shrugged her shoulders and tried to hide the keenness in her face.

"No not really," she uttered noncommittally. Leshia and Katie exchanged a grin, but said nothing of Rachel's excitement. She had been waiting weeks to see their good friends again, one of whom she had been missing unashamedly: Parys Jackson. The boy had been away with his large family all summer travelling around Europe. His absence had been felt most keenly by the flame-haired girl, who couldn't admit to her friends that she felt deeply for the boy.

"Will Parys be back then?" Leshia asked slyly, enjoying for a moment the way Rachel turned to stare at her sharply.

"You know he will. You're the one who told us!"

"Oh yeah, well that's what Rodes said the other day when he popped into the shop."

"He'll be there Rach, don't worry," Katei soothed, casting Leshia a glare. The blonde haired girl grinned and shrugged her shoulders before she leaned back and stared up at the deep pink sky. The sun was setting and it was taking with it the very last days of freedom.

XXX

"Where are they?" Leshia grumbled anxiously as she paced across the rug in the hall. Her mother, who was standing in the kitchen, looked up with a smile.

"They'll be here soon darling," she called over to the girl soothingly. "They're only a few minutes late."

An exasperated sound came from the hall before the teenager stalked into the kitchen, her hands up in frustration.

"Ten minutes mum! They're ten minutes late. We'll miss the portkey and then what will we do?"

"It won't come to that," the long-suffering mother chuckled, before she slung the bag she had been preparing onto her shoulder and went to collect little Evie from her cot up in the nursery. Leshia followed her mother upstairs, trailing the woman like a helpless puppy, much to the amusement of Hermione. "Look darling, _if_ we miss the portkey, your father and I can apparate us to the island. It won't be a problem."

"It _is_ a problem," the girl countered. "I told them to be here at half past and it's already nearly quarter to! And where's dad?"

"Right here."

Leshia craned her neck to see past her mother into the nursery to see Draco playing with a tired looking Evie on the floor. He was dressed for the wedding already and the sight of him made Hermione swoon with adoration. She could never get enough of looking at her husband, particularly when he was dressed in such fineries. Her expression gave her feelings away and with a particularly disgusted noise Leshia whisked her baby sister away from their parents towards the door.

"Yuck, that's all I can say," she told the amused couple, before she stalked over to the stairs. "Sorry you had to see that Evie."

"Lih!" was all the baby had to say in response to her sister's concern. Leshia nearly smiled at her sister before suddenly the sound of someone pottering around in the kitchen reached her ears.

"Finally!" she called out and ran down the stairs clamping Evie tightly to her chest as she went. By the time she'd reached the archway leading into the kitchen her best friends had arrived looking sheepish.

"Don't explode!" Rachel warned. "Blame her highness over there."

"I couldn't find my shoes," Katie quickly offered, wincing when she saw the anger etched into Leshia's fine features. "We're not too late are we?"

"Well actually…" the blonde girl began, before the sound of her parents on the stairs interrupted her.

"Not at all girls. Are you ready to go?" Hermione called out to the newly arrived teenagers. Rachel and Katie beamed at Leshia's mum, before they edged around their best friend towards the hall.

"Ray Ray Ray Ray…" Evie had spotted Rachel and after rolling her eyes and putting her temper aside Leshia giggled and let her flame-haired friend whisk the baby from her arms. Katie watched enviously.

"I wish Evie liked me that much," she sighed, as she and Leshia led Rachel into the middle of the hall where Hermione and Draco were holding a large golden invitation between them. Leshia grinned and slung her arm around her taller friend's shoulders.

"They're kindred spirits. You'd have to stoop to Evie's mental age to really understand what they see in each other," she explained dryly.

"Hey!" Rachel complained fondly, her smile reaching her ears when Leshia burst into reams of laughter at her expense. "As though you're the epitome of maturity."

"Come on girls, you've got a minute," Hermione warned the girls fondly, before she extricated Evie from Rachel's arms. She lifted the baby's hand to the gold invitation and then clasped her hand around Evie's to make sure the baby was holding onto it.

"Got everything?" Draco asked the girls, who all nodded indicating the large duffel bags swinging from their shoulders. One by one they took hold of the gold invitation and counted down the last remaining seconds. The minute had passed and after exchanging a gleeful look of excitement the girls all felt the pull behind their bellybuttons dragging them forward towards the invitation. The world spun frantically and each of the friends found themselves jostled against each other, their elbows knocking together and their stomachs churning.

Finally, the spinning stopped and the three teenagers managed to catch themselves before they landed on the floor of a luxurious hotel lobby.

"Welcome to Hotel Mysteria!"

The newly appeared guests looked up in surprise at the smiling witches who were walking towards them with wreaths of flowers. Leshia, Katie and Rachel giggled as they watched Draco turn slightly red when a flower wreath was draped over his shoulders. Soon they were sporting their own wreaths and they turned to grin at each other ecstatically.

"I had no idea it would be this luxurious," Katie uttered under her breath as she looked around the stunning hotel foyer. There were no walls in the tropical complex and they could look right out onto the pale aqua lagoon barely a few yards from the lobby.

"Shorty!"

The blonde girl looked up with a goofy grin to see Ryan Lofting careening across the lobby towards her. He had barely changed since their days on the Gryffindor team together at Hogwarts and by the look on his face he still regarded the girl with the same brotherly fondness he always had.

"Lofting!" Leshia called back and after grinning at her friends the girl rushed forwards to be met in a messy embrace with her former quidditch captain. Ryan Lofting was the older brother she had never had.

"You've grown again," the young man accused and when he pulled back he realised just how true this statement was. The girl hardly deserved her nickname anymore it would seem.

"Yeah, well it was always bound to happen some day wasn't it," Leshia replied playfully and she shoved Ryan away in embarrassment. She didn't appreciate the way he was looking her up and down nor the shock in his face at seeing her so…well, womanly.

"Sorry shorty," the tall young man replied roguishly, before he looked over his shoulder and beckoned his wife-to-be forward. Julia Walling was looking radiant and as she and Leshia embraced the teenaged girl felt a little giddy with emotion. After months of looking forward to this wedding she couldn't believe it was finally upon them.

"You look beautiful Julia!" the blonde girl uttered emotionally into the young woman's shoulder. Julia laughed happily and pulled away from her third bridesmaid.  
"Well so do you. Ryan's right I'm afraid, you've changed so much since the last time we saw you." Leshia's expression faltered and so Julia quickly swept her up into another embrace. "I mean that as a good thing of course!"

While the bride and her bridesmaid chattered Ryan strode across the room to greet the other guests in the party. Hermione and Draco had both once taught him in his days at Hogwarts and both were surprised at how charming the once student heartthrob had become. He led the whole group to a pair of basic, yet beautiful, huts on the beach that would be their home for the night, before leaving them all to unpack and prepare. He and Julia had to get back to greet the next arriving group of guests.

Leshia, Rachel and Katie had a hut all to themselves while Hermione, Draco and Evie shared the one next door. After promising to meet her parents back at the huts for a light lunch in an hour Leshia and her friends hurried off to explore the idyllic island.

"I can't believe how nice this place is! It's so hot!" Katie gushed as she shrugged her cardigan off to reveal a summery dress. She had come prepared for the tropical heat. Unfortunately for the other two, who were clad in jeans and T-shirts, they were slightly less prepared.

"It's a totally magical-run hotel isn't it?" Rachel asked worriedly when she saw a few guests lying in front of their hut with a large palm leaf hovering in the air and fanning them. Leshia grinned and nodded.

"Yes, run by a group of witches. At least, that's what Ryan told me the last time I asked about it."

"I can't wait to go for a swim. Just look at that ocean," Rachel sighed contentedly, her eyes seeking out the crystal clear water. There was a group of young adults splashing around in the distance and as the girls approached they realised they recognised them all.

"Mila!" Leshia shouted out and she ran to the water's edge. In the water a few of the young adults separated from the group and made their way over. Running faster than the others was Mila Evanovitch, Leshia's most recent former quidditch captain. She had just finished Hogwarts and was here with her long-term boyfriend Luka, who had been one of Ryan's best friends at school.

"Leshia!" Mila called out before she and the young blonde girl embraced. "It's so good to see you. And, did you hear the good news?"

Leshia pulled back to see her former captain grinning mischievously at her.

"If by that you mean has Dumbledore told me I'm captain then yeah," she laughed. "Thank you so much Mila! Really, I won't let you down."

"Oh shut up Malfoy," Mila laughed and she hugged Leshia once more. "Of course you won't. You're going to do an amazing job."

By now two young men and a strange young woman Leshia had never met before had reached the group on the sand. The two men however, were a sight for sore eyes. It had been two years since Leshia had seen Luka and Oskar, Ryan's best friends and now she saw them she realised they hadn't changed a bit. Judging by the expressions on their faces though, it would seem the two young men couldn't say the same for the once adorable young girl had had been Alecia Malfoy. How she had changed! There was a round of hugs all round before Oskar stepped forward with the new pretty woman at his side.

She transpired to be his girlfriend, a certain Penny Hawthorne from New Zealand. The pair had met when Oskar had gone travelling after leaving Hogwarts and had been an item ever since. Leshia, Kate and Rachel listened to the stories of these ex-Hogwarts pupils while the morning slid away. They could have stayed for longer had a figure not approached them down the beach with a tell tale swagger.

"Head's up," Luka suddenly warned with fond recognition for who was approaching. It reminded him on his Hogwarts days. "Here comes Professor Malfoy."

Leshia spun around to see the young man was right and suddenly she remembered about their promise to have lunch.

"Damn, we forgot," she told her best friends. On cue the three girls leapt to their feet and bade the others goodbye before they ran across the white sand towards the ambling form of Draco. He was smiling at them.

"I had a feeling you'd forget."

"Do we have to come for some food?" Leshia asked when she and the other two fell into step with her father. "We're not even that hungry."

"Well you can stay if you like," Draco replied. "But we were thinking of having something to eat and then taking a nap. With the time difference you might find yourself passing out half way through the reception from exhaustion, which probably wouldn't look so good."

Leshia wrinkled her brow and looked to her friends. In Rachel's quizzical face she saw her own confusion reflected, but sensible Katie was nodding fervently.

"Your dad's right Leesh. You'll probably get tired far too early and it would ruin your night. Let's go back and have a nap too."

There was a steely determination in Katie's face that Leshia and Rachel had seen too many times before to ignore. They knew they stood little chance trying to argue with her and so they went peacefully. Before too long they were all pulling eye-patches onto block out the bright light and giggling as they pulled the cool silk sheets over themselves in the luxurious soft beds. Katie went to sleep straight away, but on the other side of the room Rachel and Leshia, who were sharing the large king sized bed, couldn't contain their giggles and instead gossiped happily until a heavy knock sounded at the door several hours later.

"Come on girls," Hermione's voice wafted in. "The ceremony will start in one hour."

"One hour?" Leshia echoed with a frown. "Look what you've done Weasley! You've kept me up all this time we should have been napping."

"Me?" Rachel laughed loudly. "It was all you and your damn gossip."

"My gossip?"

"Yes _your_ gossip. I'm not the one who's had every body and their aunt saunter through the shop whispering in my ear all summer. You're like a walking talking gossip grapevine you are."

"Would the pair of you keep it down?"

Leshia and Rachel looked up in surprise to see a ruffled Katie emerging from her bed. Her hair was standing on end and she was squinting at them through puffy eyes. On pain of death the pair of pranksters nodded quickly.

"Yes sir!" Rachel barked and she quickly ran past the other two with a towel and her wash bag towards the hut's only bathroom.

"Rachel!" Katie bellowed and she hammered on the door. "Don't be too long in there! I need to wash my hair."

The loud sound of Rachel's singing filtered through the paper-thin walls eking a broad grin out of Leshia while she watched Katie stamp her foot in frustration. Needless to say, though it would have pleased Rachel no end, she didn't make her cousin suffer and after barely five minutes she was out the shower.

"Katie," Leshia called after the raven-haired girl, who bustled into the bathroom as soon as Rachel had opened the door. "I need a shower too you know, so don't take too long."

"Hah," Rachel chortled. "Fat chance. She takes ages does that one."

Unfortunately for Leshia, Rachel was right. Nearly half an hour before the beginning of the ceremony and Katie still hadn't emerged from the bathroom. Rachel had been dressed for ages and was happily enjoying a magazine while Leshia banged on the flimsy door in an outraged fashion.

"Katie!" the blonde girl shouted. "Katherine Potter! Get out of there! What about bridesmaid's rights huh? I need to have a shower!"

"In a minute," Katie's faint response came making Leshia bang harder on the door.

"You've been saying that for the last ten bloody minutes! Stop being so selfish!"

"Leshia?" The blonde girl pulled away from the door and turned to see the silhouette of her mother outside the hut door. "Is everything okay?"

"No!" Leshia called back and she ran to the door still clutching her towel and wash bag. "Katie won't get out the shower and I need to get ready."

She wrenched the door open to see her mother was looking breathtaking in a very bohemian floaty dress. There were flowers pinned in her curly vibrant hair and she looked simply stunning.

"Come on," the mother replied amusedly and she led Leshia out onto the sand. "Come and use our bathroom. Your father's taken Evie out to look at the sea. Our hut's all yours. You go on, I'll get your things. Rachel! Why you look just beautiful…"

The rest of their conversation Leshia didn't hear as she had darted into her parents' hut and into their bathroom. The comforting mix of smells that were her father's aftershave and her mother's perfume overwhelmed Leshia's senses as she leapt into the shower. Soon she was leaping out again to find her mother had lovingly laid out her possessions on the bed. She had barely fifteen minutes to go.

"Curse you Katie!" she grumbled as she grabbed the beautiful dress she had tried on in April. "Later on I'm going to well and truly get you back for stitching me up!"

XXX

Rachel and Katie fanned themselves with a pair of ornate floral fans they had found on their seats when they took their places next to Hermione and Draco. The wedding venue was one of the most stunning places they had ever seen, but the temperature was taking some getting used to. At the front of the aisle they could see Ryan in a beige linen suit, a thin film of sweat making his face glisten in the setting sunlight.

"He looks nervous," Katie whispered to her cousin, who nodded with a broad grin.

"Wouldn't you be?"

"No," Katie countered haughtily. "When I get married there isn't going to be a doubt in my mind that it's the right person for me."

"Oh yeah?" Rachel laughed.

"And what happens if he suddenly becomes the wrong person for you on the day of your wedding? I mean, you might not spot it coming, but he might do a runner while you're standing there waiting for him with a hundred people watching you."

"Yes thanks for that Rach," Katie complained.

"Hey, I'm not saying it's _going_ to happen, but you never know. Say Katie, what sort of man do you think you'll marry?"

Katie went quiet for a few moments before she frowned and cocked her head to one side.

"Well," she pondered aloud. "He'll have to be sporty. I suppose…well, he'll have dark blonde longish hair and dark eyes. He'll be tanned and he'll have to be funny. I couldn't stand marrying a man with no sense of humour, but he'll have to have a sensitive side to him too. Oh, and he has to be willing to travel."

Rachel turned very slowly to stare at her cousin with a slightly quizzical expression. Had she just heard the raven-haired girl correctly? All those attributes…

"So Rodeo then," the flame-haired girl stated with a grin. Katie spun around and glared at the girl.

"No not Rodeo!"

"Well you pretty much just described Rodes to a tee Katie, I'm sorry but…"

The girls fell silent as all around them a string quartet filled the candle lit beach with a beautiful rendition of the wedding march. The cousins climbed to their feet in time with the other guests and turned around to see Julia's older sister Becka walking arm-in-arm with Luka. After they had passed Ryan's little sister Taylor and a young man the girls didn't recognise swept past making way for Leshia and Oskar to make their way down the aisle.

Upon seeing their best friend the pair of cousins looked to one another with wide beaming smiles; she looked beautiful. They had never seen their ringleader seem to elegant nor so feminine as she did now, dressed in a simple floaty blue gown and with her long blonde curly hair loose around her shoulders, adorned like her mother's with white lilies.

'If only they could see her now,' Rachel thought fondly, a mental picture of all of Leshia's Hogwarts suitors springing into her mind's eye.

After Leshia had taken her place at the front of the aisle alongside the other bridesmaids she cast Rachel and Katie a beaming smile before the music became grander to precede the entrance of the bride herself. The cousins spun around and were blinded by the reflection of the setting sun dancing off the radiant image of Julia Walling. She was the very embodiment of the word Bride and she was happier than she had ever been.

XXX

Leshia ambled along the beach under the full moon, her mind drifting far away to the draughty hall of Hogwarts. It had been a spectacular wedding and an even better reception, but now the night was wearing on and the blonde girl was lamenting her lack of sleep earlier that day. Rachel and Katie were still throwing themselves around on the dance floor, but poor Leshia's feet had stopped working properly. She wanted some time away to think and to truly understand the peculiar feelings that had started to form a knot in her stomach ever since she witnessed the love passing between Ryan and Julia as they said their vows.

There was a persistent charming face trying to make itself known to her and so far she had been very good at denying him. Now though, away from the frenzy of the party Leshia let her thoughts drift back to him, back to Owen Gabriel, back to where they wanted to be.

"Why can't I stop thinking about you?" she whispered into the hot sticky night. Only the crashing of the waves responded leaving Leshia feeling as though she were the sand while her emotions became the waves. The girl had had quite enough of hormones and the havoc they wreaked to last her through to the end of her teenaged years, but it would seem her body had other plans in store for her.

"Do I love him?"

Leshia laughed and shook her head, feeling giddy to be having this conversation with the ever-expansive night. Though there was no one to listen to her ramblings, she still felt very self-conscious for saying such things out loud. Surely she didn't love Owen Gabriel.

"Then why do I feel this way?"

Another face scrambled into Leshia's mind, though this one was far less welcome and for a moment the girl paused, her skin crawling with the emotions of what had just happened.

"You stay out of my head," she accused angrily, but the face returned. It was as though he were standing behind her. She could feel him. The girl spun around and glanced at the thick undergrowth lining the beach. There was a rustling sound and for a moment the girl stopped breathing and strained her ears to hear.

"Who's there?" she called out. She edged closer, feeling cold in the hot night, wishing she had brought her wand with her on her stroll. "Julius Black? Is that you?"

Leshia jumped in surprise. There, between the palm fronds, a pair of pale eyes were watching her. The girl's lips parted in shock and she edged ever closer, staring deeply into those eyes. They were not the eyes of her nemesis Julius Black. No, they were far more familiar.

A small object came hurtling out of the bushes and landed at Leshia's feet causing the girl to dart back cautiously. She looked down to see a shiny dark green stone lying in the sand with a leather cord dangling from it. After glancing around curiously, Leshia reached down and lifted up the surprisingly heavy trinket. It was highly polished with peculiar runes etched into it. It sparkled with a blue sheen and seemed to be emitting a peculiar humming glow.

Leshia looked more closely at the stone. Her face started to tingle; there was a ringing in her ears. The girl felt sick. She looked up desperately to where she had spotted the grey eyes and found they had vanished. The humming was rising to an almost deafening level before quite suddenly there was a bright flash.

Leshia fell to the ground unconscious while the moon drifted across the night sky.

_End of Part I_

_Well, I'm back and here is the next instalment of the Generations series. I hope that those who were waiting patiently for it have found it. I changed the name from 'Time Bandits' because it's a more grown up piece than I ever imagined seven years ago._

_If you enjoy it, then please review. The more reviews I get, the more inspired I will be to carry on writing this story. I have finished my first original novel and am in the process of trying to get it published, so at the moment, this is where I want to be expressing my creativity. If this generates enough attention it will have __**my**__ sole attention!_


	2. Part Two

**Generations: Waves of Times**

**Part II**

"Leshia!" A wet iciness broke through the darkness of Leshia's unconscious. "Leesh! Wake up!"

The teenager groaned and opened her eyes to find Rachel hovering over her with a glass full of icy water in her hand. Katie was stood nearby, her brow furrowed with worry.

"What are you doing?" Leshia asked groggily as she struggled to sit up. Rachel let the glass drop and quickly helped her best friend onto her feet.

"You were lying passed out on the beach Leesh. What happened?" Katie asked concernedly. Leshia rubbed the back of her head and frowned at the fuzziness of her memories.

"I'm not sure…"

With a frown the girl looked down at her fingers. She was holding onto a strange stone pendant attached to a thin strip of leather. In a flash the memory of those pale eyes returned to her. Without a word to the others she darted over to the bushes and started roughly inspecting them for intruders. Katie and Rachel exchanged a worried glance, before they rushed to catch up with their friend.

"Uh, are you feeling okay?" Rachel asked. "I mean, did you hit your head or anything when you fell over?"

"I'm not going mad if that's what you're wondering," Leshia's voice came from behind the bushes. "There was someone over here, someone who threw the pendant at me and then disappeared."

"What did they look like?" Katie asked curiously.

"Well that's the thing, I only saw their eyes. They were grey, just like my grandfather's."

Leshia reappeared with a deep frown set into her forehead while Rachel and Katie pushed against each other with worry, their eyes darting around the beach for signs of Lucius Malfoy.

"It's okay," Leshia told them grimly. She seemed crestfallen. "He's not there."

She glanced at the pendant a few times before lifting it up for the other two to inspect. Whoever the interloper had been, they were long gone now.

"It's really beautiful," Rachel mused aloud. "Look at the way it sparkles. What are you going to do with it?"

Leshia glanced at the pendant once more and after a shrug she reached out to attach the leather cord round her neck. The moment the stone touched her bare sternum she felt the skin beneath it start to tingle. Katie and Rachel eyed the girl as though something magical were about to happen, though they were soon disappointed to find that Leshia merely shrugged once more and started back down the beach.

"Come on, let's get back to the dance floor. I feel much livelier now," the blonde girl called after her friends. They grinned and rolled their eyes.

"Too late Leesh," Rachel replied happily, though she did start following her friend towards the hotel. "The music's finished. Everyone's heading back to their huts."

"What? But it's only like…" Leshia paused and frowned. In truth, she had no clue what time it was. "Midnight or something?"

"Try three o'clock," Katie told her with a broad smile. "You've been gone hours. If we don't get some sleep soon, we'll be gutted tomorrow morning. Our portkey's one of the earliest ones back to London."

"What, we won't even have time for breakfast or anything?" Rachel piped up sounding outraged. Katie giggled and shook her head.

"That depends on how early you can drag yourself out of bed. The portkey leaves at ten."

Rachel scoffed and strode ahead of the other two confidently,

"Ten? No problem! I'll be up way before that. By the time the pair of you crawl out of bed I'll have had breakfast, gone for a dip in the pool and had a shower."

XXX

Leshia sat on the edge of the double bed she had shared with Rachel with a broad grin. Her alarm clock had just woken her up at quarter to ten. Woozily, in the moments before sleep had claimed her, the girl had decided to forego breakfast for a few extra hours of sleep. Expecting Rachel to be long gone and enjoying the luxurious island by the time she crawled from her bed, the blonde girl was deliriously happy to see her best friend sleeping heavily.

Katie's bed had been made and the girl was nowhere to be seen suggesting she at least had managed to get in a good breakfast at the newlyweds' expense, but here lay Rachel, dead to the world and dreaming happily. Leshia's grin broadened as she reached out and tickled the redhead's foot.

"Gerrof," a sleepy mumble escaped Rachel's mouth, before she rolled over and buried herself under her fluffy blankets.

"Rach," Leshia called loudly, forcing her voice through her friend's happy dreams. "Rachel! You'd better get up you know, we'll be going in ten minutes or so. Rachel?"

"Hmm?"

"Rachel it's nearly ten o'clock!"

This did the trick. As though the bed had suddenly become electrified the sleepy flame-haired girl leapt up and stared wildly around the room making Leshia bend over double and crack up.

"What time did you say it was?" Rachel stammered.

"Time for you to get out of bed Miss 'I'm-going-to-get-up-long-before-the-pair-of-you-so-ha-take-that'! We'll be catching the portkey home any minute now," Leshia explained gleefully.

"Bloody hell! Where's Katie? What did she do to me?"

"Excuse me? What do mean what did she do to you?"

"Well she must have done something. There's no way she'd be up before me. Not in a million years! She must have stolen my morning person-ness," Rachel accused wildly as she climbed out of bed and started hurriedly changing. At her side Leshia was still laughing hysterically, but managed to contain herself while she too started changing into some casual clothes to travel back to London in.

"I don't reckon even Katie's that clever," the blonde girl uttered through her laughter.

"Ah hem!" Both girls turned to see the third member of their trio was standing at the door with a croissant in either hand. Her expression was steely and the way in which she had just cleared her throat suggested she suspected her best friends of gossiping about her behind her back.

"Oh Katie you star!" Leshia cried out and she ran forward snatching one of the croissants from her friend's hand. "I was just telling Rachel here even you're not capable of taking her morning person personality away from her."

"Oh, was that what it was?" Katie asked with a smirk and she seemed to deflate slightly, the angry tirade that had been on the tip of her tongue skulking away until it was needed again. "Would it make you feel better Rach if I told you I _did_ put a spell on you last night to make sure you'd sleep in?"

Rachel and Leshia paused and stared with wide eyes at their friend.

"You never! Did you?" Rachel gasped eliciting a snort of laughter from the raven-haired girl by the door.

"No! Of course not. But would it make you feel better if that's what I told you?"

"Oh ha ha, very funny," Rachel grumbled and she started pulling odd socks onto her feet. "Help me pack will you? Or we'll be here till sunset at least."

The girls managed to pack and scramble out of their hut just as Draco was walking up to their door, his knuckles held up and his expression impatient. Katie was the first one out and she let out a little cry of surprise at the sight of Draco's fist coming towards her face.

"Oh," Draco uttered in surprise and he quickly dropped his hand to his side. "You're up. Let's get going, the portkey won't wait you know."

The four of them hurried along to the hotel foyer where the newlywed couple were hugging guests goodbye. Leshia and her friends quickly pushed in front of the queue and earned themselves two firm hugs for their troubles. Ryan held onto Leshia for a bit longer than he should have and when they separated the youngster could see he seemed slightly emotional.

'Must be all last night's booze,' Leshia thought to herself as she watched Ryan open his mouth to speak with trepidation.

"I want you to promise me something Shorty," the young man spoke seriously. "I want you to keep out of trouble this year. There're a lot of people who care about you you know."

"Yeah Lofting, I know," Leshia cut in shyly, rubbing the back of her neck and dropping her head to hide her crimson cheeks. Ryan smiled broadly and nudged the girl gently to reclaim her attention.

"I know you know, but I think you need reminding sometimes Malfoy. My little sister's going to be starting at Hogwarts this year and if she gets her way then she'll end up in Gryffindor. She'll look up to you Shorty, like most of the younger ones at Hogwarts. You're in this incredibly powerful position, where you can affect not just your own life, but those of other people as well." Leshia looked up again, her grey eyes meeting Ryan's kind ones. "Just promise me you'll remember that when school starts again."

"Come on Leshia! Let's go!" Rachel's voice cut in through the poignant moment between the blonde girl and the only brother she would ever know. Nodding firmly Leshia reached out took hold of Ryan's hands.

"I promise Ryan," she said firmly. "I promise I won't go looking for trouble this year."

The tall man frowned for a moment, but Leshia had released his hands and was running towards the gold invitation that the rest of her party were clutching onto.

"That's not what I meant Leshia!" he finally called after the girl, but she had reached the portkey now and was jostling with her friends for space. The last he saw of her was the same cheeky smile he'd come to dread these last four years, before she was gone.

XXX

Laughter echoed round the Leaky Cauldron. In the corner, squeezed into a small booth, were at least half a dozen youngsters, who seemed more than happy to be squashed up against the friends they had missed over the long summer months. Their get together was earning them several glares from some of the tavern's regular punters, but this didn't seem to disturb the teenagers, as they were too busy listening to Rodeo Holsson's humorous re-enactment of his summer exploits.

Rodeo Holsson had long been the heartthrob of Leshia, Katie and Rachel's year group at school along with his best friend Parys Jackson. Long ago, in the first few hours of their first year at Hogwarts, when the pair of excited boys had met on the train they got talking due to their peculiar names. Time had passed and Rodeo and Parys were now the best of friends. Together they were now easily wielding the attention of their female friends. Indeed, it seemed as though Katie, Rachel, Leshia, Nicola and Ashley couldn't get enough of their stories.

This however, was about to change.

"Move up Malfoy."

Rodeo stopped mid sentence and looked up with a scowl to see who had interrupted his story. His eyes fell on a tall lanky boy, who was unfortunately growing more and more manly with every passing day: Owen Gabriel. Where once this prodigal seeker in the year above had seemed awkward and gawky, time was definitely turning the once plain boy into a heartthrob within his own right. How Rodeo hated him and the way Leshia's face lit up when he was in her presence.

"Owen!" Leshia cried out and she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around the tall boy's shoulders. She hadn't seen him for many weeks. "When did you get back?"

"Yesterday."

"What are you doing here? How did you know we were here?" The words were falling out of Leshia's mouth quicker than her mind could control them. To the teenagers sat around the table she seemed a jabbering fool, but to the young man smiling charmingly at her she seemed divine. Suffice to say, Owen Gabriel had missed Alecia Malfoy the most over the long summer.

"I was just passing through to get my books when I heard your cackling. What's so funny?" Leshia turned her adoring gaze from Owen to look at Rodeo, who at this moment was glaring darkly at the pair of them. The girl hardly noticed.

"Oh, Rodes was telling us a funny story. Have you got time to join us for a drink?"

Owen shrugged his broad shoulders and reached over to get a chair from the neighbouring table while Leshia dropped down beside Rachel once more. Her grin had spread from ear to ear.

"When do you have to get back to the shop Leesh?" Katie asked pointedly, feeling pained by the bitter expression on Rodeo's face. In years gone by she had secretly harboured complete love and adoration for the young man and even though she felt she had moved on from her childish crush, he was still a valued friend. She hated to see the pain in his eyes.

Leshia flicked her pale eyes onto her bespectacled friend and shrugged her shoulders.

"Later," was the only response she gave before she looked back to the newly arrived youngster at her side. "So you'll never guess what I found out the other day."

"You've been made Gryffindor captain?" Owen replied easily. Leshia's smile faltered for a moment, before she reached out to shove the boy firmly.

"Hey! Who told you?"

"Mila," Owen replied with a shrug. "She sent us all letters telling us why she picked you. To tell you the truth, none of us were surprised."

Leshia blushed and hung her head slightly. She wasn't the oldest or the most experienced member of the team. That title was shared by Luke and Tom Weasley, cousins of Rachel and Katie, who were entering their seventh year at Hogwarts. They'd been on the team since second year and privately the girl felt that the honour of wearing the captain's strip should have gone to one of them.

"Well you'd better prepare yourself Owen," Leshia finally spoke up, feeling her cheeks return to their usual hue. "Because Gryffindor's not going to know what's hit it when I take over!"

Owen grinned broadly and looked away from the girl to see the rest of the occupants of the table were watching them. He nodded to the group of soon-to-be-fifth-years, noting with some glee that Rodeo, his archrival where Leshia was concerned, seemed severely put out.

"Had a good summer boys?" Owen asked casually, earning himself a sneer from the younger boy.

"Yeah, pretty good," Parys spoke up calmly, ever the peacemaker. He could feel Rodeo trembling at his side and wanted to divert an explosion of emotion if possible. He'd been having a great time catching up with friends until now. "How about you?"

"Wicked mate, absolutely wicked," Owen replied cheerily and for the next hour he regaled the youngsters with stories of his holidays, which soon had them in stitches of laughter once more. Leshia felt she could have stayed all afternoon listening to the young man speaking, but time had been ticking along and she still had her final shift at the shop to finish.

The girl waited patiently for a pause in Owen's never-ending monologue until finally he paused for breath after a particularly hilarious tale. Leshia jumped at the chance and leapt to her feet.

"Sorry guys," she told her friends happily. "But I'm going to have to love you and leave you. I've got go put my last hours in at the bookshop."

"I'll come with you," Owen spoke up easily and he too climbed to his feet. "I've still got to get my books."

The farewells were subdued as Leshia and Owen wandered off into the crowds of the Leaky Cauldron. They would all be seeing each other on the train the following day and Rodeo's foul mood seemed to have put a dampener on everyone's spirits.

"What was up with Holsson?" Owen asked genially as Leshia led the way out into the backyard of the pub, her wand out and ready to give them both passage into Diagon Alley.

"You know what was wrong with him," Leshia complained amusedly. "The pair of you have got to get over this rivalry you have." Owen scoffed loudly earning himself a sharp elbow to the ribs from the girl at his side. "I'm serious! You're both as bad as the other and sooner or later it's going to get really tiring. I'm not going to choose between you you know."

"Oh come on," Owen chuckled as the wizarding street materialised in front of him. Leshia led the way through the busy jostling crowds. "If you had to, you'd choose me right?"

"Owen!"

"Yes dearest?"

"So what NEWTs did you decide on in the end?" Leshia asked forcefully, changing the conversation before she could start to get annoyed with her dear friend. Owen raised his eyebrows at her abrupt change in conversation, but replied nonetheless,

"Boring ones," he grumbled. "If I want to get on the Auror programme then it's got to be Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration, Charms and Ancient Runes."

Leshia grimaced. She too had the intention of trying to get on to the difficult training programme at the ministry, but had no idea it would constrict which subjects she took in her sixth and seventh years at school.

"You're joking," she complained. "You have to take all them?"

"Well, there's a little wriggle room, but it's pretty bleak," the boy explained grimly. "It's going to be a tough two years I'll tell you that."

"Hang on, you've already got a contract with the Wimbourne Wasps. Don't you start playing for them when you turn seventeen…in like three weeks or so. Hang on…."

"No, I'm not leaving school Malfoy if that's what you're thinking," Owen quickly cut in. "That's what they wanted me to do, but I need to get my NEWTs."

"What do you mean?" Leshia gasped and she grabbed the tall boy's arm firmly. He stopped in the busy street and looked at his friend with a thoughtful expression. "You could leave school and be a professional quidditch player next month if you wanted to, but you're choosing to stay and take five really _really _tough subjects at NEWT level instead? Are you bonkers or something?"

Owen laughed and wrapped his arm around Leshia's shoulders genially, dragging her towards the bookshop that was looming in the distance.

"Yes Malfoy, that's exactly what I'm doing."

"But _why_?"

"Look, as soon as I leave school I'm going to try the quidditch thing…"

"Huh! Quidditch _thing_?" Owen ignored her interruption.

"…but if that doesn't work out then I'm going to need to fall back on something aren't I? Let's say my arm falls off, what will I do then if I don't even have any qualifications?"

Leshia gazed up at the tall young man with a betrayed expression. This didn't sound like her Owen. What had happened to the young man to make him look upon his future with so bleak an outlook? Owen noticed her glaring.

"Oh get over yourself," the young man laughed and he wrestled Leshia into the crook of his arm. "It'll happen to you one day too you know."

"Owen!" Leshia cried in mock outrage from his armpit while she struggled to escape.

"You'll have to choose between school and quidditch, I just know you will…" With one almighty shove Leshia broke free and stared up into Owen's serious eyes with a shaky smile. "And when that day comes Leshia, you'll be surprised at how scary it all becomes…the future I mean."

"I don't believe you," the girl finally replied and after shaking her head she walked through the crowds towards Flourish and Blotts with a grinning Owen in her wake.

"You'll see," he called after her. "You're going to do some pretty serious growing up this year Malfoy. You might just surprise yourself!"

XXX

Leshia leaned back in her chair with her hands resting on her bursting stomach. It had been a glorious meal, the very last of Hermione's home cooking before school took over. Despite the fact that the Houselves of Hogwarts had always put on a magnificent spread for the castle's diligent young population, Leshia still adored her mother's home cooked meals. There was something so homely and cosy about sitting around the grand dining table in the kitchen with her mother and father either side of her. It all harked back to the years Hermione had been away; obliterated and living under a false identity in South America unaware she had a family missing her deeply back in London. In her first year at school Leshia had helped bring her mother home and since those early days every basic family event was cherished dearly by the girl.

Take this evening for instance. After arriving home from the bookshop Leshia had spent an hour playing with her baby sister in the 'muggle room' while Hermione chatted to her best friend Ginny on the phone. Draco had arrived home shortly before seven and had dropped down beside his daughters to join in their game leaving Hermione to stare at them all adoringly and take a few photographs. Baby Evie had been put to sleep and the three older members of the family had then happily devoured Hermione's delicious cooking to a soundtrack of amusing anecdotes from each member of the table. It had all been so simple, yet so valuable to the close family. They lived always under a shadow of fear and danger, but to look at them sitting lazily about the table you wouldn't have believed it.

That is, until they all heard the crash from upstairs.

"Draco!" Hermione cried out in panic as all three members of the family leapt to their feet and went running up the creaky stairs.

"Hermione watch Leshia," the man of the house warned as he darted into the nursery where young Evie had been put to sleep a few hours earlier. Leshia struggled against her mother, who grabbed her with surprising strength and prevented her from following in Draco's footsteps.

"Mum!" the girl complained, but her mother's face was set firmly in defiance.

"Shhh darling," Hermione warned while she strained her ears to hear what was happening in the nursery. Within seconds the door was wrenched open and a thunderous Draco stepped out with a very sleepy Evie wrapped up safely in his arms. Behind him both mother and daughter could see glass littering the floor beside the crib. One of the windows had been smashed. Hermione exhaled heavily and took the baby from her husband's arms.

"Both of you, stay here," the tall dangerous man warned his wife and daughter while he stormed downstairs, his wand out and his brow set in fury. Leshia entirely ignored his command and ran after him.

"Leshia! Listen to your father!" Hermione called after her daughter, before she ran after the girl, carefully trying not to upset her youngest child too much. The teenager was well ahead of her mother, but not quite quick enough. As she reached the back door the girl felt her body turn sluggish.

"Mum!" she managed to cry out before even her mouth froze under the power of the spell her mother had silently commanded. Hermione quickly caught up with Leshia at the door and pointed her wand at her oldest daughter.

"Do you promise not to follow your father out there?" The powerful witch indicated the black sticky night. Leshia was unable to nod or speak, but managed to convey her agreement through a particularly annoyed guttural sound. "Good girl."

Silently the spell was reversed and Leshia felt herself freeing up once more. She obeyed her mother for fear of what Hermione might do next and instead jumped from one foot to the other while they all waited for Draco to return.

"Ugh!" Leshia cried out suddenly when a dead bird came into view being dangled delicately by its legs in between her father's fingers.

"False alarm," Draco told his family calmly, the relief clear in his expression. "Stupid thing flew right into the window."

"Oh no," Hermione sighed. "The poor thing."

"Can you save it mum?" Leshia asked worriedly, looking at the bird's wide dead eyes with a deep feeling of unease inside her chest. Draco snorted insensitively and lobbed the bird back into the garden.

"Dad!"

"Draco!"

"The damn thing's dead," the tall man complained as he pulled the door shut and locked it. "There's nothing you can do for it now."

While Draco walked over to the sink in the kitchen and started washing his hands Leshia peered through the windows into the dark garden. Every shadow became an enemy in her vivid imagination and despite herself she shuddered. They would never be safe as long as Lucius Malfoy still roamed the streets. Draco Malfoy's Death Eater father had long been on the run, but in recent years he had started to rally about him the dark following once more.

His vision was to help the Dark Lord to rise again and were this not terrifying enough, to make matters worse he was trying to abduct Evie and kill Leshia and Hermione as a means of penance on his son. Draco had taken everything from his father the day he had turned his back on the Death Eaters and helped the Order of the Phoenix destroy Voldemort and now it was Lucius' intention to take everything from his son.

Until Lucius Malfoy was caught Leshia knew her family could never be safe.

These thoughts trickled through the girl's mind as she tried to find sleep that night, but every time her eyes shut she saw her grandfather's gaunt disfigured face laughing and cackling at her. Every innocent sound that wafted through the old creaky house became twisted and sinister, so much so that Leshia got up several times to check on her little sister in the nursery next door.

Hermione had easily repaired the window, but sadly it was less simple to repair ravaged nerves. On the last of her many visits to the nursery Leshia found her sister awake and sitting up in her cot. She was playing with a soft toy rabbit that had long ago belonged to Leshia herself. Upon seeing her big sister Evie's adorable face lit up in a big toothy grin.

"Lih!" she cried out happily, earning herself a broad smile from the older girl. With ease Leshia dropped down beside the cot and weaved her skinny fingers through the railings. Evie reached out to meet her sister's hand with her own.

"I'm glad you're happy at least," Leshia sighed and she grinned even more when Evie started directing her thumb towards her sticky little mouth. "Ugh! Evie you don't have to put everything in your mouth you know."

Leshia freed her thumb from certain doom and reached out to stroke Evie's soft dark curls. The baby giggled inanely at her sister's touch. For the umpteenth time this summer the blonde girl wondered how she could have ever hated this precious little thing. She had wasted a year of Evie's life hating her and now she regretted it deeply. If only she could claw back the time.

"I'll never hate you again," Leshia whispered and she leaned her forehead against the railings of the crib. Evie dragged herself forward and started pulling herself up beside Leshia's face so that their foreheads were nearly touching through the bars. "I'll never let anything happen to you Evie. I promise."

XXX

Steam billowed through the English valleys like a winding twisting snake. Beneath the white haze the Hogwarts Express steadily made its way northwards bringing with it its bounty of young witches and wizards, ready to start a new year at school. Leshia, Rachel, Rodeo and Parys had found a cabin for themselves and were happily eating their way through a mountain of treats they had bought off the sweets trolley while somewhere along the train Katie was doing her first ever Prefect's Patrol.

"I'll bet she's docked a hundred housepoints already," Rachel mused aloud while she directed yet another chocolate frog towards her mouth. Leshia chortled happily and slouched down in her seat, watching the rolling hills glide past.

"As long as she hasn't docked any from Gryffindor I don't mind what she gets up to," she replied lazily.

"She's not really going to dock housepoints from people is she?" Parys asked worriedly while he brought his feet up and rested them on Rachel's bursting stomach.

"Parys!" the redhead groaned. "I'm stuffed! Shift your bloody feet!"

"You'd better believe it Parys," Leshia spoke over her best friend's outburst. With tremendous difficulty Leshia dragged herself up and faced the dubious boys with a knowing expression. "She's not only going to dock housepoints, but she also says she'll dock them from us if she sees us doing anything wrong."

"She'd never," Rodeo countered firmly. Leshia grinned and shrugged her shoulders.

"That's what I'm secretly hoping too," she replied grimly.

"But this is you guys," Rodeo was continuing, not for one second believing their friend could be so duplicitous. "You're always doing something wrong!"

Leshia and Rachel sniggered, but nodded nonetheless.

"Well we _did_ try to tell her this," Rachel sighed. "But someone's made the grave mistake of handing my cousin some power and boy is she going to use it."

"Even on us?" Parys asked with a wrinkled brow. In unison the girls nodded.

"Even on us."

Before the implications of this bleak revelation could set in there was a fervent knock at the door to the carriage. Rodeo, who was closest, leaned over and peered behind the blind to see who it was.

"Leesh it's those twins from fourth year. Shall I let them…"

"Rodes! Yes, let them in," Leshia complained and she leapt to her feet as the bohemian boy opened the door with a broad grin. In spilled two girls that had clearly been built from the same mould as Leshia. They had the girl's same tiny wiry figure, blonde curly hair and pale probing eyes. Whether this was the reason the three had bonded and become friends was doubtful, but it did seem a peculiar coincidence when you saw the three side by side.

Eliot and Jaime Wood were in the year below Leshia and her friends. They were the only offspring of the Scottish quidditch international goalkeeper Oliver Wood. It had been a shared love for quidditch that had prompted Leshia to befriend the younger twins, but since those days they had become dear allies. And allies were important to Leshia. She needed all the friends she could get.

After the pleasantries had been loudly and spiritedly got over with in the centre of the carriage the girls all dropped down on the benches once more, though arguably, with a little less space this time around. Rachel found herself pressed up against Parys, who was still trying his best to slouch despite the influx of the extra people. The result was a peculiar near-embrace that had both teenagers blushing.

"You could sit up you know," Rachel told the boy coyly, earning herself a charming grin from Parys.

"I could do, but where would be the fun in that?" Rachel grinned broadly and shrugged her shoulders.

'Where indeed?' she thought to herself and tried to force herself to calm down. So Parys was practically lying on top of her? Why did she have to behave like…like…like Katie all of a sudden?

"So come on then Leesh," Jaime Wood was saying loudly, tearing Rachel's attention away from her happy predicament. "Out with it, who's the captain then?"

Jaime Wood had been a chaser for Gryffindor team for two years now and though she hadn't received a letter from Mila letting her know who the new captain was, she was sure she already knew. Everyone already knew. You could tell by the way Leshia's face lit up at the mere mention of the word 'quidditch'.

"Well, I was going to wait and tell you when we got to…"

"Congratulations!" both Eliot and Jaime crowed loudly and despite everyone just having found a comfortable spot the carriage was filled with hugs once more.

"That's great news!" Jaime exclaimed jubilantly once she'd found her seat in the corner beside Parys once more. Leshia hung her head slightly, but the silly grin still remained on her pretty face.

"Thanks."

"When do tryouts start?" Eliot asked curiously.

"You thinking of trying out for chaser are you?" Leshia asked curiously eliciting a hearty laugh from the small twin.

"Yeah right, it's keeper or nothing at all and seeing as you've got that one nicely covered with that giant quaffle catching machine I think I might pass thanks."

"Only one position going this year?" Parys piped up interestedly, his steely gaze boring into Rodeo, who was avoiding his gaze.

"Yep," Leshia replied happily. "Mila's the only one who left last year. You should try out Parys and you too Rodeo. You never know, you might get lucky."

"Yeah," Rachel laughed. "If everyone else catches flu the day of the tryouts!"

"Oh yeah?" Rodeo jeered in return, his face alight with happiness and mischief. Fluidly he reached up to the luggage rack and pulled down Leshia's pride and joy: her broom. "Come on, I'll take you on right now. Who's got a quaffle?"

"Will this do?" Parys piped up, lobbing a pumpkin pasty at his friend.

"Nah. A pasty's too small,_ this_ is more like a quaffle…" Rachel complained and she pulled off one of her shoes and threw this to the boy with the broom instead. While Rodeo struggled to hold onto the shoe and the pasty the others rolled around laughing until finally the handsome young man gave up and let the pasty fall on Leshia's head in order to grab the shoe firmly.

"That's it!" Leshia cried out in feigned annoyance. "Dropping a pasty on the captain's head? Immediate disqualification."

"That's not a rule!" Rodeo complained happily.

"Too bad Rodes. I'm captain, I can make it a rule!"

Their gimmickry could have continued all the way to Hogsmeade had Katie not chosen this exact moment to walk in the cabin. For a moment everyone stared at the girl, as she looked Rodeo up and down in surprise. He was still standing on the bench, Leshia's broom between his legs and Rachel's shoe dangling from his hand. Behind Katie the sharp features of Charlie Dotton, one of the boys who shared the Gryffindor fifth years dormitory with Rodeo and Parys, lingered in the corridor. He had a shiny prefect's badge attached to his cloak the same as Katie's.

"Um," Rodeo mumbled, frantically searching for something to say to the two law enforcers. "Hi?"

Rachel sat up sharply, she could tell by the look on her cousin's face what was about to happen and she wouldn't let it ruin their first few hours together of the new school year.

"There's no rule against riding brooms on the train is there?" she asked urgently. Katie glanced to the red-haired girl and nodded tremulously.

"I'm afraid there is Rachel. Brooms are not to be ridden indoors by any means," Katie replied firmly, lifting up a small maroon leather book as proof of this fact. It had the Hogwarts crest emblazoned on it in gold and read clearly: _Prefects Manual_. "I'm going to have to…"

Everyone stared at the girl while she fought the two facets of her personality. To be a good friend or to be a good prefect? She couldn't be both in this moment.

"Rodeo," she said slowly, while everyone held their breath. "That's five points from Gryffindor."

The words hung heavily in the air for a moment before one by one the children in the cabin exhaled heavily. Last to do so were Rachel and Leshia, who merely shook their heads at their best friend. Having done the deed Katie dropped her head and shuffled out, shutting the door carefully behind herself.

"That ruddy harpy!"

"Rachel!" Leshia complained. "She's just doing what she thinks is best."

"Well she should think a little harder next time," the flame-haired girl countered, but her heart wasn't in it. She knew who her cousin was and she knew Katie would be giving herself a far harder time than they ever could for her treacherous act just now.

"Come on Jay," Eliot spoke up to break the awkward silence that had ensued. "We're nearly there, let's go change into our robes."

Indeed, the environment outside the window had been changing and everyone could see they were nearly there. The fifth years pulled their robes over their uniforms and half-heartedly cleared away their rubbish into the bin. By the time the train rolled to a halt at the station everyone's excitement had reached fever pitch. So much so that as soon as a grim faced Katie met up with the others they instantly forgave her and dragged her along between their arms towards the horseless carriages.

Once up at the castle the Great Hall of Hogwarts was awash with the chatter and laughter of its many pupils and teachers. Leshia, Katie and Rachel dropped down beside Ashley and Nicola, the remaining girls from their dormitory and happily looked around the room to catch sight of friends from other houses.

"Hey look!" Rachel cried out loudly. "Isn't that Gareth Dackshaw and Laura Figreed in Huffepuff feeling each other up right there in front of the teachers' table?"

Everyone's heads swivelled round and then quickly swivelled back with gleefully disgusted expressions on their faces.

"Look at the colour Professor Snape's cheeks have gone," Leshia pointed out quietly to Katie at her side. The raven-haired girl sniggered and nodded.

"They'd better watch themselves or they'll find themselves scrubbing the potions dungeons before the first night's even through."

"I say good for them," Rachel butted in from across the table. Leshia and Katie looked up amusedly to see their friend's eyes glinting mischievously. "Someone ought to teach the old dog a few tricks. Lord knows he's not getting any good gropage around here. He's probably forgotten how to give a good grope."

While Katie rolled around in hysterics Leshia arranged her face carefully into an expression of disgust.

"Yuck Rachel. Just…" The girl paused and shuddered. "Yuck!"

The girls lulled into silence while they listened in to the loud conversations going on around themselves. There was a heightened state of excitement while everyone waited for the first years to be led into the hall and sorted into their houses. Anxious older brothers and sisters chattered louder than most and those without siblings seemed to be enjoying the chance to wind up their friends.

"I can't believe pock-face is still here," Rachel mused loudly through the din of the great hall. Leshia glanced up to the teachers' table and instantly saw who her friend was referring to: Professor Tripper. In their previous year at school the foul teacher had made their lives miserable. That he had been under the imperius curse and under Lucius Malfoy's control seemed not to matter now. All that mattered was that the wretched man was still allowed to stay at school and teach Ancient Runes.

"Now your mum's back, she should be teaching Runes again," Rachel complained. Leshia shrugged her shoulders.

"She's still looking after Evie loads."

"Well couldn't she bring her to class though?" the flame-haired girl asked with a cocky frown. Leshia shrugged her shoulders.

"Not my decision to make I'm afraid. As much as I'd like them to, my parents don't always do what I tell them to."

"Shhh you two, here come the first years!" Katie's sharp command came, silencing both Leshia and Rachel. They stared along with everyone else in the hall as the small frightened looking first years were led through the aisles between the house tables to the front of the hall where the Sorting Hat awaited them.

"They look terrified," Leshia whispered to her friends, who nodded in agreement. Rachel had gone very still as she followed one particular red-haired young girl through the crowds. All in all the fiery young girl was the oldest of five sisters and one brother and though she did get on with almost all her siblings there was one who she was closer to than all the rest: Ria.

It had all rather snuck up on Rachel that Ria would be coming to school this year. She had long got used to the fact that Hermia was now in her fourth year in Slytherin and Emelia was entering her third year in Gryffindor, but for some reason it had come as a surprise to her when Ria got her letter this summer. She seemed far too little to be joining the older girls on their train journey to school. Part of Rachel was expecting the Sorting Hat to tell the young Weasley girl that she had come too soon and should try again in a few years.

"Any surprises this year?" Pary's soft voice came from the other side of Nicola.

"Well that's Ashley's sister for starters," Nicola spoke up, pointing at a scared mousy-looking thing walking behind a pair of tall identical twins.

"Yeah and that's Ryan Lofting's little sister Taylor," Leshia added, indicating the confident girl walking beside Ashley's sister. The girl seemed beside herself with excitement to have finally arrived at the Sorting ceremony. Leshia grinned when she remembered how confident Taylor had been when they first met at being sorted into Gryffindor.

"What sort of a name is Taylor for a girl?" Parys sniggered. Leshia rolled her eyes and leaned round Nicola to land a gentle punch on the boy's arm.

"Yeah? Well what sort of a name is Parys for a boy?" she countered cheerily.

"I'll have you know that Paris was the name of an ancient muggle hero. That's who I'm named after," the boy scoffed with a broad grin.

"Isn't there a famous muggle tart called Paris too though?" Rachel now butted in, her eyes alive with mischief. Parys met the girl's eyes steadily, before he smiled charmingly at the girl. His rebuttal never came however, as at the front of the hall the Sorting Hat had started singing its annual song. Everyone craned their necks to see the raggedy hat singing proudly. By the time it came to a close everyone in the hall burst into tumultuous applause.

"That hat gets better every year," Parys exhaled contentedly. Rachel and Leshia sniggered.

"Yeah and you say that every year too!" the blonde girl teased. Up at the front of the hall 'Al-Sharif, Mamood' had just been called forward. A small boy crept nervously up to the stool while the ancient hat was lowered over his ears. Almost instantly it bellowed,

"Gryffindor!"

Leshia and her friends leapt to their feet and started cheering along with the rest of their table, but then went silent as ten children were sorted into the other houses. Their attention was beginning to wane until Professor McGonagall read out a name that instantly caught Leshia's attention,

"Gabriel, Claire."

The blonde girl glanced up the table to see her good friend Owen sit up sharply and watch as his youngest sister made her way up to the stool. Leshia had met the girl only once before, but knew her to be a partner in crime to Owen's other younger sister Sophie, who had been sorted into Gryffindor the year before.

Owen swore on the fact that his sisters were possibly the most irritating people he had ever met, but so far Sophie hadn't shown any sign of a manic tendency to make her older brother's life miserable. What would happen if her partner in crime joined her in the Lion's house?

"Gryffindor!" the hat bellowed. Leshia grinned wryly and looked up through the cheering Gryffindors to see Owen was smiling proudly. Shortly after Claire had been sorted into Gryffindor a very excited Taylor followed in her footsteps. With a broad smile Leshia climbed to her feet and wandered over to the latest Gryffindor addition.

"Taylor! Congratulations!" she called out to the girl and ruffled her hair fondly. "Your brother will be pleased."

The young first year turned a beaming smile on Leshia and nodded. She seemed stupidly proud of herself and leaving her to her fellow first years Leshia gave her one last smile and wandered back up to her friends.

"Leesh," Rachel called out the moment Leshia returned. "Look who it is."

Leshia turned two curious eyes on the stool at the front of the room and found it to be occupied by a funny looking boy with bright green spiky hair. The hat was being lowered onto his head and as it did so his nose turned into a flapping elephant's trunk. The great hall burst into applause as the cheeky boy offered them a broad grin.

"Horatio," the trio of fifth years back at Gryffindor table told one another amusedly. Horatio Lupin was the metamorphagus son of Tonks and Remus, who had inherited his mother's ability to morph his body into different forms. Over their years of growing up side by side with their parents' friends' children, Leshia, Katie and Rachel had had little to do with the Lupin boys. They were too young to be considered good friends, but they had always enjoyed the tricks this little boy played on his brother and the younger Weasley children.

"I had no idea he was old enough to go to school," Rachel exclaimed as she studied the boy carefully. His hair was slowly changing from green to his natural brown colour as clearly he and the hat were undergoing a rigorous private conversation.

"I hope he's Gryffindor or Ravenclaw," Katie whispered. "It would be handy to have a Metamorpagus on our side."

"What? You mean with the Blue Lions?" Rachel replied curiously. Leshia jerked her head onto her friends for a moment and met Katie's gaze. Yes, that would be useful!

For a long time young Horatio Lupin sat beneath the hat, his appearance becoming more and more normal, until finally his expression turned to a deep frown.

"Gryffindor!" the hat decided loudly. Up on the stool the new Gryffindor first year let out a visible sigh of relief, before he darted to his feet and went to take his place at the end of the loud cheering table.

"I reckon the hat wouldn't sort him until he showed his true appearance," Katie told her friends quietly, as around them the din died down. One by one the pupils' attention started waning, as the line of expectant first years dwindled to the last few. Finally, Ria's moment arrived.

"Weasley, Ria!"

Moments before Cerise, the younger sister of Luke Weasley had been sorted into Gryffindor to a wall of sound courtesy of the large contingent of Weasleys already present in the Lion's House. The young girl stood at the front of the hall glanced over to Gryffindor, her eyes snaking up its length to catch sight of her sisters. Finally she caught Rachel's keen gaze and with a broad smile the older sister gave courage to the younger.

Ria was an almost exact replica of her oldest sister both in appearance and in mind. If Rachel had been sorted into Gryffindor then Ria could surely expect the same?

It would seem the Sorting Hat thought so also, as before the old tattered hat could be dropped onto the expectant Ria's head it bellowed loud and clear,

"Gryffindor!"

Rachel melted into a relieved little heap as the whole table erupted into cheers. Leshia and Katie dragged their friend onto her feet and clapped her on the back.

"Do you remember I told you lot in first year about them having to rename Gryffindor into the Weasley House?" Leshia called over the shouting, her eyes roving over the patchwork of red heads dotted along the table. Rachel and Katie turned broad beaming smiles on the girl. "Well, if they don't do it this year I'm going to put in a request to Dumbledore myself!"

XXX

_Leshia stood in the dark. A musky silence enveloped her, encroaching on her fragile mind. The girl strained to see in the gloom, but caught only dappled reflections in the distance. She was cold._

"_Hello!" she called out, her voice echoing around the vast chamber she could not see. Other than the sound of her own hurried breathing, nothing stirred in the dank darkness. Leshia placed one foot in front of the other and strode forward towards the flickering dim lights in the distance. As she walked a deep icy feeling started spreading from the pit of her stomach._

"_It's only the dark," she whispered to herself as she paced onwards, but the icy feeling had spread to her chest now, crippling her in the shadow. Jerkily, the girl sped up, her eyes never leaving the flickers in the distance. Either side of her shapes started emerging as though from a dark mist. _

_The iciness had spread to Leshia's legs, slowing her down as she fought to reach the now golden glow in the distance. The objects surrounded her, trapped her, blocked the way…_

Leshia sat up in surprise and realised with relief that golden light was streaming through the gap in her bed curtains. For a moment the girl panted, the tendrils of the nightmare lingering in the depths of her mind, before even they were gone. Morning had come and with it a rather fluffy surprise.

It took Leshia a few minutes to realise that there was something heavy lying on her stomach. It was a pleasant warm weight that she hadn't felt since her first years as a pupil at Hogwarts. Reaching down with slender fingers Leshia confirmed her suspicions when they came across silky fur. A little purr escaped the sleeping lump and after grinning the blonde girl pulled back the duvet to find a silver tabby cat looking up at her knowingly.

"Philly?" Leshia uttered happily and she reached out to stroke her former cat under his chin. Many years ago when Leshia had first come to Hogwarts she had brought with her a wild kitten she had dubbed Philleus. The little cat had grown wilder still within the castle walls and had stopped frequenting Gryffindor tower and the girl he had once known as his master. Leshia had heard from the others that a girl in Hufflepuff had wooed him and now he called the dungeons his home.

"What made you come back to me?" she whispered, enjoying the way Philly's content purring reverberated through her stomach. Across the dormitory a startled yelp sounded from Katie's bed. Leshia jumped, dislodging the cat from her stomach. With a haughty yowl Philly climbed to his feet, yawned widely and sauntered off through the curtains leaving Leshia watching him go with a deep feeling of unease.

She didn't have long to ponder this new state of mind.

"Wake up!"

Rachel's overexcited face pushed through the curtains inches from Leshia's face making the blonde girl jump in surprise. The flame-haired girl seemed to think it an unarguable right that she be allowed to wake her dorm-mates in a most unpleasant manner on a daily basis. Certainly for the last four years Katie, Leshia, Ashley and Nicola had suffered the girl's 'worse-than-an-alarm-clock-tendencies' as they saw fit to describe it.

"Bugger off," Leshia replied severely, before she unceremoniously shoved Rachel's face away and climbed out of bed. Her broad smile showed she didn't mean to seem grumpy. Heaven forbid she start being a grumpy morning person like Katie. They didn't need two of them! "You know what? I'm going to ask my mum to give teach me a spell that'll stop people from yanking my curtains open willy nilly."

"Well you see that wouldn't be much use though would it?" Rachel retorted gleefully. "You see I never do anything willy nilly."

"As if," Leshia laughed. "I bet if we pick up a dictionary there'll be a picture of your goofy face right next to the words willy nilly."

"I hope not," Rachel replied quickly. "I don't think I like the idea of my face being next to the word willy in a…"

"Oh shut up! Both of you!" Ashley's furious grumble came from across the dormitory. "Just go get a bloody shower and let us doze in peace!"

Leshia and Rachel exchanged a mischievous grin, before they went about finding their towels and wash bags. Leshia found hers easily enough, but then had to wait while Rachel fumbled blindly in her trunk to get hers. Whereas all the other girls had taken a little time the night before to unpack their heavy trunks, Rachel told them she'd get round to it. Eventually.

"Yeah, by Christmas," Leshia had quipped happily.

Finally they were armed and wandered down to the small queue that was milling around outside the bathroom doors in the common room. It moved quickly enough, the small bathrooms being enchanted to house an untold number of shower cubicles, and soon the girls were making their way down to breakfast.

"Did I just see that cousin of mine lingering at the back of the queue with Nicky and Ash?" Rachel asked with a frown as she and Leshia ambled through the sparkling corridors. It would seem over the holidays Argus Filch, Hogwarts' long-suffering caretaker, had managed to get a satisfying amount of gleam into his floors. No doubt the eager population of Hogwarts would soon put this to rights within a matter of days.

"Yeah, I thought it was. Why?"

"Well wasn't she telling us how she couldn't wait to get to school so she could go and try that private prefects' bathroom?" Rachel pondered with a disapproving frown.

"Oh yeah! Maybe she's being a wuss because she'll have to go on her own."

"Probably. Who else made prefect? Do you know?"

Leshia shrugged her shoulders and tried to think back to the evening before. She had seen a few shiny prefects' badges floating around the place, but for the life of her she couldn't think who they had been attached to.

"Well Charlie Dotton's the other Gryffindor prefect," she finally replied thoughtfully. "And I'm sure I saw that ratty girl in Slytherin, what's her name? Oh yeah, Tamara Beckwaith, I'm sure I saw her with a badge yesterday. She was taking her job pretty seriously and trying to heard their new brood down to the dungeons after the feast."

"Yeah, I saw that. She looked like she was trying to herd cattle not first years! I saw David Sykes in Ravenclaw doing the same thing, so I bet he's a prefect too," Rachel agreed.

"Oh you're joking. He's a right swot! I bet he wet his pants at the thought of being able to dock housepoints from other pupils," Leshia groaned. The girls happily embellished this scenario until they reached their places down at Gryffindor table. They had worked it into a mini play by the time everyone joined them and Professor McGonagall swept up the aisle with their timetables.

"Please not Ancient Runes, please not Ancient Runes, _please_ not Ancient Runes," Leshia whispered frantically as the formidable teacher approached. Rachel sniggered at her side, but mirrored her thoughts inwardly. Anything but Ancient Runes first thing on a Monday would be a relief!

"What are you twittering about?" Katie's amused voice interrupted their mantras.

"Would you like to spend this morning cooped up with _that_?" Leshia asked pointedly, throwing her hand in the direction of the teachers' table. Professor Silas Tripper looked darker than a thundercloud as he glared the excitable pupils up and down. He seemed more out of place in a school than a lion would in a pet shop.

"Good morning girls," the strongly accented voice of their head of house wafted over the trio of friends. As one they looked up and granted the old woman beaming smiles. "I'm glad to see you're all in such fine spirits this morning. Let us see how long they last!"

With this she dropped the timetables in front of the girls and swept up the table to deliver the others. The three girls swooped on the pieces of parchment and collectively their faces fell.

"Oh you've got to be kidding!" Rachel exploded. "Damn it Leesh, you jinxed us! Ancient Runes followed by Charms! Could it be any worse?"

"Charms isn't so bad," Katie put in calmly, but earned a foul glare for her efforts.

"Charms isn't so bad?" Rachel echoed in disbelief. "Do you know how bad I am at charms Katie? My wand technique is 'abysmal' as Professor Flitwick said in my last report."

"It's probably because most of the time you're holding it back to front…_Ouw_!" Leshia clutched at her sore fingers and cast her flame-haired friend a glare. "Just because you're crap at charms doesn't mean you need to maim my fingers does it?"

"Oh shut up the pair of you," Katie chuckled and she leaned across the table pointing to something on the timetable. "Here, look at this. You're not going to like it."

In unison Rachel and Leshia leaned forward and glanced at the timetable Katie was holding up. At first glance, both of them could tell there was something not quite right with it, but it took Katie's patient tapping to show them what was amiss.

"Um, why does it say 'afternoon break'?" Rachel finally asked with a furrowed brow.

"Yeah and why do our lessons suddenly go on till five thirty?" Leshia added darkly.

"Only on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays," Katie tried soothingly, but she could tell by the matching thunderous expressions on her friends faces that they were not best pleased with the new fifth year timetable.

"Only?" Leshia demanded. "Katie's there's nothing 'only' about it! What's going on? Why has our day just become much longer than before?"

"I think it's something to do with these," the calm bespectacled girl replied, her finger tapping on a new part of the timetable. Her friends' eyes fell onto the page where she was indicating and almost instantly their faces lit up.

"Does that say what I think it does?" Rachel asked loudly while at her side Leshia nodded quickly.

"Frees? We get frees in fifth year? I didn't think they started till sixth year?"

"Well they're not technically called frees Leesh," Katie admonished gently. "They're actually called study periods and we should be using them to work in the library…"

"Bollocks," was the general consensus from the other two.

"They'll be used for dossing about, that's what they'll bloody well be used for," Rachel concluded. Katie's brow dipped, but her cousin was shaking her head rebelliously. "No Katie! If they can make us have lessons till five thirty three days a week then what little time they give us back will be used for whatever the hell we feel like all right?"

Leshia sniggered happily at their sides and looked up to see Owen Gabriel sauntering into the great hall. For a moment everything faded into the background (even the blazing row going on between Rachel and Katie at her side) and all that existed was Owen Gabriel and his charming smile. The sixth years had made themselves comfortable beside Leshia and her friends and with a wriggling sensation deep within her stomach Leshia realised her friend was making his way over to the space at her side.

"Morning shorty," the boy called over pleasantly before he dropped down onto the bench at the blonde girl's side.

"Morning," she chirruped loudly, trying to overpower the raised voices at her side. Owen glanced to her friends and then shook his head amusedly. "They're arguing over our new timetable."

"Oh yeah? What's so controversial about it?" Owen chuckled while he reached over to receive the timetable his friend Paul was handing to him with a nod of thanks. Leshia noticed his hair was still wet from the shower and then told herself off for noticing.

"Frees," she replied. "Or not frees as Katie's trying to say."

"Oh right. I remember getting frees for the first time last year. They're better than Christmas they are. Well if you think you've got a lot of free time, take a look at this."

Leshia glanced over the boy's shoulder and looked at his timetable. Her jaw dropped.

"That's mad! Half your timetable is free time!"

Owen shook his head meekly.

"Malfoy if I sat around picking my nose during these frees I'd fail my NEWTs before the end of the first term. In fifth year you should cherish your frees. You've only got them because you're having lessons later now, so they make up for the extra time earlier on in the day. But in sixth year you've actually got to work pretty damn hard during your free periods."

"Sounds crap," Leshia sighed, hoping that by some miracle she might bypass her NEWT years. They sounded awful already and she'd barely started her fifth year. "Hey, what's that? Form Group?"

Owen glanced to the timetable and saw where Leshia's long finger was pointing. Monday afternoons, last thing, _Form Group_.

"Ah, see that's to make sure we're all doing some work in our own time. You each get a teacher who checks up on you once a week. Guess who mine is?"

Leshia frowned worriedly, as by the grim expression on her friend's face she could see it wasn't going to be the most popular teacher in the school.

"It's not my dad is it?" she asked warily. Owen chuckled and shook his head.

"Worse I'm afraid."

"Snape?"

"Nope."

"Oh God…it's not Tripper is it?"

The tall boy nodded once and glanced up at the teachers' table to see the scowl his new form teacher was wearing. For a moment he actually grimaced.

"Do me a favour Malfoy," he finally spoke, sliding his hazel eyes onto his friend with a charming smile. "Can you try your best not to piss him off today?"

For a moment Leshia's face distorted into a vision of pure mischief.

"Owen," she drawled. "I'm not making any promises."

XXX

I'm experimenting with slightly shorter chapters.

Please review.


	3. Part Three

**Generations: Waves of Times**

**Part III**

Leshia, Katie and Rachel leaned lazily against the corridor wall outside the Ancient Runes classroom. They had arrived a little later than their more studious classmates and were therefore relegated to the back of the line. This suited them just fine and soon they found themselves breaking the hushed silence.

"I feel so sorry for Owen," Leshia whispered.

"Yeah," Rachel agreed grimly. "Anyone would've been better than having Tripper as your form tutor. I can't imagine him supporting anyone. They're better off helping themselves and staying the hell away from him."

"I'm sure he can't be that bad," Katie cut in dryly, earning herself two disdainful stares from her best friends. "Well think about it. Dumbledore's forced to have him as a teacher here right? Minister Crayik hasn't really given him a choice, but that didn't mean he had to give him a tutor group did it? I mean, for all we know, he may be really good at the job."

"All right then," Rachel exclaimed cheerily. "Come sixth year, you'll be putting in a request will you? To be in his form group?"

Katie's cheeks reddened and she shook her head.

"I wasn't going to go that far. I was just trying to make Leesh feel better."

"Me?" the blonde girl piped up curiously. "It's nothing to do with me."

"No I know, but Owen…well, he's your…you know…" Katie's cheeks had now grown a deep shade of scarlet and the usually composed girl seemed to be suddenly terribly fascinated by the floor. Leshia's brow hardened and she placed a hand on her hip.

"He's my _what_ exactly?"

Luckily for Katie, the door to the classroom creaked open. Those standing nearest to it sidled backwards and everyone turned to watch as the greasy face of Silas Tripper peered out at them all from the dim classroom. His eyes roved over them all, before settling on Leshia. The blonde girl could have sworn she saw him shudder.

"Good morning," Professor Tripper muttered and he pulled back into the safety of his classroom. The youngsters left standing in the corridor passed one another curious gazes before the bravest of them started shuffling inside. The fifth year Gryffindor friends were the last.

"Did I just imagine that?" Leshia asked her companions with a deeply furrowed brow.

"No," Rachel agreed thoughtfully. "It's weird. It's like he was scared of you or something."

"Shhh," Katie ordered and she stepped boldly forward into the room where she promptly dropped her bag, its contents spilling across the floor. While a few of the others tittered and giggled, a tall young man rushed forward and started helping Katie stuff everything back inside her leather satchel. Leshia and Rachel entered at the same time behind their friend and stared in confusion at the scene before themselves.

Leshia's expression however, soon turned to one of disgust when she saw the identity of the young man who had come to Katie's rescue: Black. While Katie fought to compose herself Julius Black straightened up, granted the three girls a rogue-like smile before sidling over to his table.

"Katie," Rachel grumbled from behind the embarrassed raven-haired girl. "Budge up, we can't get in!"

As though a firework had been lit beneath her, Katie darted over to a spare seat and hid her face behind her hair while Leshia and Rachel fell down either side of her. At the front of the classroom Professor Tripper was rifling through some notes, seemingly unaware of his students' presence in the room. Rachel sized him up for a moment, then judging it to be safe she leaned over to her cousin.

"Why did you drop your bag like that?" Her concerned tone thinly veiled the amused grin on her face. Katie let out a withering sigh and glared at the flame-haired girl.

"I was expecting it to fly off to my designated seat for the term. _You_ know, like last year. He always had somewhere for us to sit. This is just…"

"Weird," Leshia interrupted, her pale icy gaze following the uneasy movements of their teacher. She dropped her voice to the quietest of whispers, "He seems terrified."

"Good morning!"

The fifth year pupils stared at their teacher, taking note of each nervous twitch and every wince. Professor Tripper seemed alive with nerves and his shrill call to the class had momentarily taken it out of him. He rallied himself together, inhaling so deeply it rattled through his bony chest.

"Welcome back after the holidays."

The foul man looked from one pupil to the next making them look away from his hungry gaze. Only Leshia watched his eyes as they skipped past her, leaping from Katie to Rachel at her side.

'Why not look at me Silas?' she pondered snidely in her mind. 'What are you afraid of?'

"I take it you all had fun?"

Again an uneasy silence, in which the pupils studied their desks intently. At the front of the room Tripper clapped his hands together and shuffled backwards until he reached his blackboard. Clumsily, he spun it round, causing a small avalanche of papers to cascade from his desk. No one so much as giggled.

While the teacher scuttled about, trying to bring some order to his papers the tall boy at the front of the classroom looked up from his hands to catch Leshia's eye. She glared forcefully at him, eking a smile onto his face. He held her gaze however, until at Silas Tripper straightened up.

"This term we will be studying the Anesh family of Runes. Er…" His wild watery eyes roved over the youngsters one more. "Er…can anyone tell me where these Runes come from?" A few hands timidly reached into the air. "Yes, Miss Beckwaith?"

"They come from India sir, from around the turn of the first century," Tamara Beckwaith clearly replied.

"Ah," Professor Tripper mumbled. "Ah, I'm afraid your wrong Miss Beckwaith."

Instantly the other hands in the classroom dropped while the pupils looked to one another with frowns on their faces. Leshia looked to Katie, who had the deepest frown of all. "They do in fact hail from China and are believed to…er…have originated in the er… sixth century"

"Sir."

Rachel and Leshia exchanged a smirk before they looked to their raven-haired friend, who had stuck her hand straight up in the air.

"Sir," the girl repeated, waving her hand about vigorously. Tripper squinted at the girl and waved his hand at her, indicating she speak.

"Yes Miss Potter?"

Katie's cheeks glowed brightly once more and she rubbed at her cheek anxiously, trying to build up the courage she needed.

"Tamara's right sir. They do come from India. You must be thinking of the Hakeh family." An ugly silence filled the room. "Sir," Katie added for good measure. For a moment the class stared while Professor Tripper's face flitted through a series of expressions.

Quite suddenly, he darted to a large book open on his desk. He directed his wand at it and moments later the pages started flying. Suddenly they shuddered to a halt allowing Professor Tripper to pour over the pages feverishly, his fingers tracing the lines he was reading.

He looked up and gulped, before double-checking where his fingers had ended up.

"Ahem," he coughed and he wiped his clammy brow. "Well done Miss Potter. You passed my first test. Well done for noticing my _purposeful_ mistake. Five points to Gryffindor."

There was another awkward silence while the trembling teacher glanced at his notes despairingly. He rubbed his brow once more, before he dropped the papers on his messy desk dejectedly.

"Your first task for the term will be to do some research in the library on the Anesh family of Runes. I expect you to have finished two feet of notes by the end of the session." The incredulous expressions of his class met him. "Well what are you waiting for? Go on, off you go."

Leshia, Katie and Rachel were the first out of the door, slinging their satchels onto their shoulders and exchanging bemused glances.

"I don't know which I prefer," Katie grumbled as they walked. "Tripper when he was terrifying, but at least had some idea of what he was talking about or this new Tripper, who seems to be scared of his own shadow, but has no idea what he's talking about."

"Um," Rachel laughed. "Isn't it obvious? This one of course! At least he isn't breathing fire down our necks this year."

"Yeah, but how are we supposed to pass our OWLs if he isn't even able to tell the difference between a linear runic style and a cyclical one? The Anesh and Hakeh families are _completely_ different. They don't even sound the same for goodness sake!"

"Katie," Leshia complained with a frown. "I know you're upset, but bloody hell! Get over it! At least he doesn't seem to have it in for me this year. Instead…well…he actually seems scared of me."

"We could have some fun with this," Rachel chuckled darkly.

"Well I'm glad the pair of you are having such a good time. We may as well bunk off all his lessons and spend the rest of the year dossing about, because to be honest, we'd learn more from that than we would in any of his lessons!"

Leshia and Rachel's jaws dropped while Katie flounced off ahead of them. For a few moments they seemed frozen to the spot, before as one, they leapt forward once more to catch up with their friend.

"I'm sorry," Rachel spluttered once she had reached her cousin's side. "But did you just give us permission to doss about? All year?"

Katie let out an exasperated sigh before she cast Rachel a fierce glower.

"No! I was just being dramatic. If anything, we're going to have to work harder this year because we'll be teaching ourselves. Fat lot of good Tripper is going to be to us."

Leshia and Rachel exchanged a horrified grimace, both of them imagining their tall friend taking charge of weekly (or worse, daily) Runes sessions in the library to catch up on their missed work. In an instant they realised this had the potential to go very seriously pear shaped.

"Um Katie," Leshia tried tentatively as they hurried along towards the library. "I'm just putting this out there early on just so as you know, but I'm going to be capping the hours you can force us to study with you in the library at four hours per week. Now you can take them all in one go or spread them out, it's up to you, but really any more than that and I will have to say no. And I can't promise I will be polite about it every time."

Katie stopped quite suddenly and turned to stare at Leshia with a thoughtful expression. One glance at Rachel's face showed the redhead would happily match Leshia's offer. After a few moments Katie nodded.

"Agreed. Four hours per week, but I get to say when."

X

After a rather dull lesson in the library in which Katie seemed to do more to manage the chatty distractible behaviour of her friends than Tripper did, the youngsters were free to go to their next lesson. Leshia and Rachel hung their heads while Katie berated their Runes teacher furiously. Suffice to say, they were thrilled when they reached the Charms classroom where they ran into Parys and Rodeo, who had just enjoyed a fun-filled Care of Magical Creatures lesson out in the brisk morning sunshine. They fell upon the girls and rallied round them, ensuring everyone was in good spirits throughout the usually enjoyable lesson. Even Rachel managed to get through the hour without anything dreadful going wrong; such as her wand igniting anything that came near.

As the bell rang signifying the start of break time, the girls tumbled out into the sunshine, ambling after their male companions, who had conjured Rodeo's muggle football as though from nowhere and were now running over to the relatively flat patch of grass that had served them as a football pitch these last four years. The girls made themselves comfortable on a small hillock, where they could watch (and make fun of) the game till their hearts' content.

"So Leesh, when are you holding quidditch trials?" Rachel asked curiously after they had spent most of their break time watching the boys and their game. The blonde girl frowned for a moment; the thought had rather slipped her mind. It would seem she wasn't taking to her captaincy as quickly as she had imagined. Shouldn't it be at the forefront of her thinking at all times?

"Um," she pondered aloud. "What've we got last thing on Wednesday?"

"Charms," Katie responded automatically. Leshia and Rachel exchanged a grin.

"Have you already memorised our whole timetable Katie?" the redhead asked her cousin fondly. Katie shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.

"Of course I have. Haven't you?"

"Katie we've only had it for two hours or so. How have you managed that already?" Rachel demanded happily while Leshia sniggered at her side.

"Charms you say?" the blonde girl interrupted, before Katie could launch into an in-depth description of the memory techniques she used on a daily basis. "Well that's not so bad. Yeah, I'll hold them Wednesday."

"Just remember we'll be finishing lessons at five thirty," Katie chirruped helpfully eliciting a pair of scowls from her friends.

"How could we forget? Ruddy sadistic teachers. Making us…"

The rest of Rachel's diatribe was put on hold by an errant football landing between the girls in the grass. Theatrically they screamed and looked up to see Parys hurtling towards them up the slope. Seeing him coming, Rachel threw herself at the ball, leaning her upper body on top of it, making retrieving it more difficult for the young man.

At the sight of her Parys burst into a broad grin, which lit his whole face up as he came to sit down by the girls. Down on the pitch the other boys from fifth year saw what had happened and ambled over to one another to entertain themselves while they waited for Parys to settle the situation.

"Are you going to make me fight you for it?" the tall boy asked amusedly.

"Fight me for what exactly?"

Parys' grin broadened at the feigned perplexed expression on Rachel's face and for a moment he let his eyes drift to the poorly concealed football, before looking to the girl's friends with a resigned sigh.

"You're witnesses right? She asked for it."

"Oh absolutely begged for it I think," Leshia quickly replied with a broad smile of her own. For a moment a playful affronted expression grew on Rachel's face before all of a sudden she found herself well and truly manhandled to the ground. Her raucous laughter drew the attention of not one, but three patrolling teachers who were on duty and seeing the pair struggling together for the ball in a most indecent way they started making their way over.

"Um guys?" Leshia spoke over the laughter. "I hate to break up this very touching moment, but in about one minute McGonagall, Flitwick and Sinistra will be breathing down your necks about 'improper displays of public affection'."

As though her words were electric, Parys suddenly leapt to his feet, the ball in hand, before he ran back down to the pitch leaving Rachel lying on her back, her laughter dying down to a contented chuckle. She remained this way and gave the three passing teachers a cheery smile while they went back on their way.

"Have we got Transfiguration today?" she finally asked, glancing in Katie's direction.

"No, not till tomorrow."

"Good, I don't think I've seen McGonagall so sour-faced in a while. I wouldn't want to be cooped up with her for an hour." Leshia grinned and watched their head of house ambling off towards the lake to patrol the path that snaked around it (usually a veritable goldmine for teachers looking for pupils engaged in indecent displays of public affection).

"She's alright McGonagall. She'd never give you a hard time, no matter how upset with you she was. She's not like Snape. Now there's a teacher that knows how to hold a grudge."

For a moment Rachel looked awkward. Leshia noticed and furrowed her brow as her best friend wrapped her fingers around each other, trying her very best not to make eye contact with the blonde girl. She had been doing this a lot lately whenever Professor Snape was mentioned.

"You know," Leshia mused aloud. "One of these days I'm going to start thinking you've got a crush on old Snapey Rach."

This did the trick. With a disgusted expression Rachel looked up.

"Oh get lost, no I haven't," she grumbled.

"Well why else is it that you go all weird and moody whenever I'm slagging him off?" Leshia demanded cheerily. "I mean you used to join in with me whenever we were bashing Snape and it would be this one over here who told us off." Here she jerked her thumb at Katie, who was watching her cousin calculatingly. _She_ knew why Rachel was feeling differently about their Potions master.

Katie's lack of a response also managed to irk Leshia, who now looked on the raven-haired girl with a questioning glance.

"And now you? Come on guys, what's going on? The pair of you have been funny for ages. I hate it when we keep secrets from one another!"

Rachel looked to Katie, who after a moment shrugged her shoulders. Theirs wasn't a terrible secret after all, but it did bring back dark memories from a time of her life that Leshia was desperately trying to forget.

"Look," Rachel sighed. "You know last year, when um…when you were…"

"When I was what?" Leshia persisted, eliciting a groan from Rachel. She was just going to have to say it.

"When you were on trial. You know, when your grandfather reappeared." Instantly Leshia backed off and she dropped her head, momentarily overcome with a flood of nightmarish memories. Rachel barrelled on to save her friend from these haunting thoughts. "We saw quite a lot of Snape. He was often in the witness chambers and he was the one who came to get us on that last day we saw you. Leesh I know you're not going to believe me, but you should have seen him. He was so sad that you and your dad were probably going to end up in Azkaban. He was really upset. And then that last day, when we were called in as witnesses. Do you remember I managed to get to your side down in the pit?" Leshia nodded slowly. "Well it was him Leesh. He was the one who knocked the guards out and let us in, he said so that we could say goodbye to you. So you see, I just don't know what to make of him anymore. I'm not saying he's the world's nicest teacher, or he's suddenly changed, but there is definitely a lot more to him than meets the eye."

Rachel fell silent and for a moment she and Katie exchanged a concerned glance. They didn't want to start a feud with their best friend on the first day back and Leshia had a habit of reacting unnecessarily passionately to these sorts of conversations.

Finally Leshia spoke, though all she managed was a quiet, "Oh."

In the distance the bell was ringing, signifying it was time to head in for their next lesson: Herbology. As they ambled back in the pleasant sunshine Leshia looked up to see Rachel and Katie were watching her worriedly. She graced them with a broad genuine smile.

"To be honest, I'm not quite sure what to make of that. A part of me thinks you're mad and making it up, but I know you wouldn't. Let's just hope that he treats us all a little nicer in our lessons from now on."

X

"Malfoy! And you too Weasley! This is the last time I am going to ask you to _stop talking_. Both of you, detention! My office, after dinner this evening," the furious voice of Severus Snape rang out across the dungeon. The two subjects of his wrath looked to one another with an amused grimace. "For the time being, as you both seem incapable of keeping your mouths _shut_, Miss Malfoy move yourself next to Mr Black."

Leshia's amusement quickly dissipated and she glanced to the front of the dungeon classroom to see Julius Black look up interestedly from his notes. Just why they were back to having Potions lessons with the Slytherins was a mystery, as they had been granted a reprieve last year in the form of sharing this most dreaded of lessons with Ravenclaw instead. Perhaps Snape had missed his favourite hobby of berating the Gryffindors in front of their sworn enemies the girl wondered as she moodily picked up her belongings and sauntered to the front of the room with as much attitude as she dared.

Once she had finished making her protest, however small, Snape narrowed his eyes at the girl and carried on with his lesson. Luckily there were only a few minutes left before the bell went signifying the end of the day for the tired fifth year pupils. Leshia was the first out of the room, rushing to get away from the insufferable knowing look that had materialised on Julius Black's face when she sat down next to him on the end of the bench.

"He's even worse than before," the blonde girl grumbled as she and her friends hurried back to Gryffindor tower. It was Leshia who was setting the pace. "So much for him secretly harbouring some deep affection for me. He ruddy hates me does that man!"

"Leesh," Katie laughed happily. "The pair of you had sat there talking throughout the whole lesson. You were sort of asking for it."

"Oh don't you start," Rachel grumbled. "You'll be docking housepoints from us next for slagging of a teacher."

"Ha!" Katie exclaimed happily. "I do want Gryffindor to win the House Cup you know. If I started docking house points from you for that sort of thing we'd be in minus figures before the week was through."

The girls had now reached the entrance hall and seemed much happier for it. Everywhere they looked happy peers ambled past them, sparing a smile for the popular trio of Gryffindors. The three girls had earned a certain level of celebrity status amongst their peers over the years and particularly those in the younger years looked up to them with admiration.

"Hang about," Leshia suddenly exclaimed and she reached into her satchel to pull out a hastily crafted quidditch notice. With a big grin she ambled over to the quidditch notice board and pinned the note up. It was her first act as captain of the squad and it made her swell with happiness to be putting something on the notice boards for the first time.

"Can't wait till next year," Rachel sighed.

"Why's that?" Katie asked at her side. They had hung back a little to watch their friend put her notice up.

"Well Tom and Luke will have left school of course," the redhead explained cheerily, referring to their older cousins in seventh year who had played for the Gryffindor side for six of their seven years at the school.

"Oh charming," Katie laughed. "Are you upset with them or something?"

"No you muppet, but they're beaters aren't they? I bet I'd stand a chance of getting on the team when they hold beaters tryouts. Hey Katie, why don't you try out for chaser? You always play really well when we hold matches at the burrow."

Katie grinned proudly at this compliment and shrugged her shoulders. By now Leshia had rejoined them and they were making their way up to the tower. The blonde girl, having heard Rachel's question, was listening interestedly for her response.

"Well if I'm being totally honest it's the time issue really," the bespectacled girl finally explained, her cheeks blushing slightly. She knew her friends wouldn't understand her studious concerns.

"What do you mean the time issue?" Leshia asked with a frown.

"Leshia there have been times where you've been in training five days a week!" Katie replied firmly. "I just couldn't give up all that time. When would I have time to do my homework?"

On cue the girl's friends burst into mocking laughter.

"You really are such a swot Katie," Rachel crowed gleefully. "You surprise me every day! How do you think Leesh manages?"

"Yes well I'm not like Leshia," Katie grumbled, feeling embarrassed by their lack of understanding.

"Excuse me," Leshia herself laughed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"No nothing bad," Katie quickly complained. "It's just you're really good at doing things last minute and you still get really good marks. I just don't think I could do that. It would stress me out far too much!"

"Katie, Katie, Katie," Rachel sighed and she wrapped her arm around her taller cousin's shoulders. "What are we going to do with you eh?"

"Let her be as swotty as she likes and then copy her homework before she hands it in?" Leshia suggested cheerily, earning herself a playful elbow to the ribs.

"Hey!" the shorter girl complained happily. "Just because you can't face the fact that you're the school's biggest swot does not mean you get to mortally wound me!" Quite suddenly a messy play battle of old developed, with the three girls careening down the corridors wrapped up in a tickling match. They could have carried on all the way to the portrait of the Fat Lady (and probably beyond), but someone slight had stepped into their path.

"Girls!" a fond voice called out, cutting through their laughter. Instantly the three teenagers straightened themselves out with glowing expressions to meet Hermione's eye. "Have a good first day did we?"

"Yeah mum, it was great," Leshia chuckled.

"Already in trouble though I hear," her mother countered with an affectionate smile. For a moment Leshia grinned wryly.

"How is it that even though you're not a teacher, you still seem to know the second I get in trouble?" the girl finally asked. Hermione gave her a conspiratorial grin, but shook her head.

"Now that would be telling. Anyway you, I've come to find you because I need a big favour."

"What's that?"

"Your father and I are going out this evening and we need someone to babysit Evie," Hermione explained, before looking up at the other two with a broad smile. "You could all come along of course. I've got some homemade pizzas ready to pop in the oven."

"We'd love to," Rachel quickly agreed. Pizzas were her favourite meal and she knew for a fact that Hermione's homemade variety were some of the tastiest in Britain.

"Yeah mum, no problem," Leshia added happily.

"Um, aren't you two forgetting something?" Katie piped up with a sneaky smile. "After dinner you two have a date with Professor Snape. Remember?"

"Oh," Hermione exclaimed. "That's tonight?"

"What, you didn't know that?" Leshia asked incredulously. "You knew I had a detention."

"Well it's not so specific Leshia," Hermione chuckled. "We don't know when and where. Okay, well that's not a problem. What time does your detention start?"

"After dinner," Rachel grumbled.

"I don't mind babysitting on my own for a few hours while they do their detentions," Katie quickly piped up, earning herself a grateful smile from Hermione.

"Thanks Katie, we should be back by nine thirty."

"Do you need us right away?" Leshia asked, hoping they at least had time to dump their heavy satchels in their dormitory before they were called away. Hermione smiled at her daughter and shook her head.

"Come round in half and hour or so."

X

And so, half an hour later and minus two heavy satchels (Katie just couldn't be parted with hers as she claimed this an ideal time to get a head start on their homework), the three girls ambled down to the portrait of the newlywed couple. After scratching the groom's foot the painting fell forwards making way for a front door that Leshia had never found locked.

Once inside the girls found a very well dressed Draco lying on the rug in front of the empty fireplace, playing with a pyjama-clad Evie. Upon seeing the three teenagers the baby started squealing with delight, entirely ignoring her father in favour of these youngsters.

"Lih! Lish! Lih!" Evie cried out over and over, throwing her pudgy hands into the air in the general direction of her big sister. The blonde girl smiled broadly and swooped down to pick the now one-year-old into her arms.

"You're getting heavy fatty," she complained, shifting the little girl into a more comfortable position. Evie was too delighted to listen to Leshia's words and started jabbering at her in her own baby language.

"You're so charming," Draco's amused voice came and he stood up at their side, fondly squeezing Leshia's neck. "Get that from your mother."

"Excuse me?"

Everyone looked to the doorway leading into the master bedroom so see a highly amused Hermione appear. She looked divine in a beautiful evening gown. Leshia fought the silly childish jolt that passed through her. Whenever she saw her mother dressed up like this, it always cast her mind back to the times she had been a very young girl and her parents would be leaving her with a babysitter while they went out to parties with their many friends. The sudden wave of attachment still came as a surprise to the teenager. Yes, when she had been little she would cry and cry when her parents went out for the evening, but did she still have to find herself cowing to the same emotions? She was nearly sixteen for heavens sake!

Shaking herself out of her sudden emotionality Leshia dropped down onto the sofa with Evie still clutched in her arms. Rachel and Katie joined her moments later and seeing her sister's flame-haired best friend, Evie went into overdrive.

"Ray! Ray! Ray!" the baby shouted, her pudgy hands no longer seeking out her sibling, but her friend instead.

"Traitor," Leshia laughed, but she appeased the baby and handed her over to Rachel to moddy coddle. "So where are you two off to tonight?"

"Oh nowhere special," Hermione uttered coyly and she quickly hurried over to Draco's side with a beautiful pearl necklace for him to attach round her neck.

"Nowhere special," Leshia repeated slightly incredulously. "I don't get it. You both look really nice, it's not like you're just popping round the Potters' for tea is it?"

Draco glanced at the girl with a fond expression. She had indirectly complimented her parents after all. While he attached the necklace round his wife's neck he waited for her to speak, but she seemed entirely distracted by pulling at a loose thread in the beautiful embroidery on the bodice of her dress.

"Well seeing as you won't tell them I will," he finally chuckled.

"No Draco," Hermione complained, but her heart wasn't in it.

"Your mother has won a prestigious award," the tall man explained, ignoring his wife's mild protests. At his words Hermione glowed bright red and disappeared back into their bedroom to find her shoes.

"An award?" Leshia asked sounding puzzled.

"Which award has she won?" Katie added curiously.

"It's a ministry award actually, for all the work your mother has done over the past year in furthering our understanding of the magical history of this country," Draco explained proudly. In the bedroom he heard Hermione utter a frustrated groan.

"It sounds more prestigious than it actually is," she called through. "It's just an archaeology award really."

The three girls on the sofa giggled as they watched Draco shake his head theatrically and mouth to them, "Don't believe a word she says."

"Draco!" Hermione complained and she appeared once more, ready for the award ceremony. "You mustn't go spreading rumours, making out this is something it isn't. Anyway, girls, speaking of history of magic, how was your Ancient Runes lesson this morning?"

It was a thinly veiled probe into Tripper's affairs. Everyone in the room could tell, but Hermione continued to stare at the girls intently.

"It was awful," Katie finally responded when the silence had become slightly awkward. "He doesn't know a thing! He mixed up the Hakeh rune family and the Anesh rune family."

"Yeah and then all we had to do was study in the library," Rachel complained grimly. "It was so boring!"

"Best bit of all though is that he seemed scared of me," Leshia added, a smug grin spreading across her face.

"Really?" Hermione finally uttered. Anger radiated from her for a moment, before she shook her head. She knew she couldn't vent how she was feeling in front of the three girls, but one look to Draco revealed that he would receive an earful once they were alone.

"We might need you this year mum," Leshia was continuing. "At this rate we won't be learning anything and you'll need to teach us in our spare time."

It was a joke, but at her side Leshia felt Katie stiffen. Rachel noticed too and glared playfully at her blonde friend. The last thing they needed was extra lessons in their free time.

"Oh give over," Hermione laughed. "I don't know everything darling."

"Yes you do. Here, I bet you could tell me what this says." Leshia reached down inside the collar of her shirt and felt for the peculiar stone she had found on the beach at Ryan's wedding. It felt slightly warm to touch. The girl hesitated for a moment and then pulled the cord over her head. Intrigued, Hermione wandered over and reached out for the pendant.

"Where did you get this?" she asked curiously. Leshia thought for a moment, a lie ready on the tip of her tongue, but in truth, she hadn't done anything wrong, so why ought she lie about it?

"I found it on the beach at Ryan's wedding. There was no one around so I kept it."

"It's a very beautiful stone," Hermione marvelled, watching as the light sparkled over the dark surface. "I don't think I've ever seen runes like these before. Do you mind if I hold onto it for a few days?"

Somehow, Leshia_ did _mind, though she couldn't explain why this might be so. To her mother she showed none of this reluctance and instead she nodded happily.

"Study it till your heart's content," the girl replied cheerily, before she added, "As long as I get it back mind."

Hermione carried the stone through to her study and placed it carefully on her desk, before she reappeared looking at the clock in the kitchen. Draco, knowing it was time to go, easily scooped Evie from Rachel's arms and kissed her goodnight.

"Don't rally this one into a frenzy please girls," he told the three teenagers on the sofa with a sly smile. "There is a bottle of milk for her in the fridge to have in an hour and then she should go to bed."

"Dad," Leshia laughed. "What do you think we're planning on doing with her? Taking her for a night out on the town in Hogsmeade or something?"

"Knowing you Leshia, I wouldn't put anything past you," Draco warned wryly. After one last kiss he dropped the baby back into Rachel's arms. Leshia smiled slyly at her father and shook her head. That there was a certain element of truth in his words mattered little to the teenager. The three girls climbed to their feet as Hermione and Draco walked over to the hearth. They each picked up a handful of floo powder, before looking to the girls with mixed expressions. Hermione's beaming face merely conveyed her gratitude, whereas Draco's expressed a look of warning.

"Be good," was all the man said before he disappeared in a haze of green flames. Hermione followed moments later leaving the three fifth years alone with a very excitable Evie.

"Well I'm going to start my Herbology homework," Katie announced, before she flounced over to the kitchen table with her satchel. The other two exchanged a grimace, before they made themselves comfortable on the sofa once more, Evie sandwiched between them.

"Hey, shall we teach your sister how to play exploding chess?" Rachel asked suddenly, spying the chessboard in the middle of the coffee table. For a moment Leshia glanced to their more studious friend, who had looked up at this ludicrous suggestion. A violent game was hardly suitable for a one-year-old.

"That my dear Rachel, sounds like a splendid idea!"

X

The following morning on their way down to breakfast Leshia made a detour via her freshly pinned up quidditch notice. With a jolt of excitement she saw that at least two dozen hopeful Gryffindors had written their names up. Rodeo Holsson and Parys Jackson were third and fourth from the top. With a happy smile Leshia turned to catch up with the other two who had gone and found their seats at Gryffindor table. Along the way however, she was waylaid in the most unpleasant of ways.

"Watch it blood traitor," a filthy voice accompanied the rather painful shoulder barge Leshia received on her way into the great hall. She turned around angrily to see Damian Allseyer stalking into the hall with his gang of rather dim-witted henchmen. The boy had grown, but there was something else that made him appear differently to the snivelling wretch he had once been. There was a darkness Leshia couldn't quite describe accompanying him like a thundercloud. Something about the expression on his face made Leshia turn away and walk over to her table without so much as a glance back.

"Everything alright Leesh?" Katie asked with a concerned expression. She had seen the brief altercation at the doors. Leshia nodded and sat down quickly, still not turning around to see what had become of Allseyer.

"He looks bigger this year," Rachel spoke up. "Look at him. He's really beefy."

"That's not all that's changed," the blonde girl complained, now that she had overcome her short period of anxiety. "There's something different about him. He seemed really…I don't know, sinister I guess."

"Sinister? That muppet?" Rachel chortled.

"Yes," Leshia replied firmly. "I know it sounds ridiculous. I mean up until now he's been a snivelling toe rag, but just now…well he was actually a little scary. You know, he would be scary to other people. Not to me obviously."

To distract the others from her moment of cowardice Leshia quickly pointed up the table to where Rachel's little sister Ria was enveloped in an excitable discussion with none other than Taylor Lofting and Claire Gabriel.

"Looks like they're the best of friends already," she said loudly, luring the others' attention away from herself.

"Yeah I saw them at it in the common room last night. Were we ever that giggly when we were eleven?" Rachel asked with a furrowed brow.

"There are some who might say you're that giggly now."

The girls looked up to see Parys had wrangled himself into the conversation by leaning right up against Rachel's side. Rodeo had shuffled up beside Katie on the other side of the table.

"I'm sorry, but did we ask the pair of you?" the flame-haired girl asked with feigned haughtiness. Parys grinned charmingly and slung his arm around the girl's shoulders.

"I thought you were asking the world at large my dear Rachel. If you don't want just anyone to join in the conversation then why do you talk so bloody loudly?"

"Ha! The cheek!"

Predictably the pair fell into a wrestling match of sorts while the others tried to go about their breakfast without getting involved.

"What've we got first?" Leshia piped up through a mouthful of toast. Her eyes were trained on the walking timetable that was Katie Potter.

"Divination with Professor Trelawney followed by Potions," the girl responded automatically. Leshia groaned and rubbed her forehead.

"Brilliant, what a fun morning. Tell me, have we actually got any decent mornings this year or are they all rubbish?"

"Tomorrow's not so bad. Muggle Studies followed by Herbology," Rodeo spoke up. Both Katie and Leshia turned to stare at him, jaws hanging. "What?"

"Rodes, don't tell me you've memorised our timetable too," Leshia complained.

"Just got a good memory I suppose," the boy shrugged. "Why? Who else…never mind. That's a dumb question isn't it?" His eyes twinkled in Katie's direction, who smirked happily and turned back to Leshia.

"Look, would it make you feel better if I told you we've got our first free period after break?" she explained, trying to pacify her fiery smaller friend.

"Yes!" Leshia crowed triumphantly. "That's made me feel infinitely better. Hey Rachel! Rachel! Rach let him go and listen!"

At her side her best friend relinquished her hold on Parys' head and turned to look at Leshia with an expression that warned this had better be good enough to interrupt the highly amusing play battle she had been enjoying moments ago.

"We've got our first free today!" Leshia exclaimed happily. Rachel's face split into an enormous grin and she looked to Katie as if for confirmation.

"Really? When?"

"After break," Katie replied with a smile at the excitement something so minor had evoked in her friends. Sometimes they could be quite simple creatures the girl felt.

"What've we got first?" Rachel now asked.

"Ah," Leshia grumbled. "See that's the thing…"

X

"They're both mentalists! I ruddy hate them!" Leshia fumed as they trudged back to Gryffindor tower. Rain had swept across the grounds and as such everyone seemed to be heading back to their common rooms for break time. Rachel and Katie were having to run to catch up with their irate friend, suppressing amused grins as they went.

"Come on Leesh, Trelawney wasn't that bad," Rachel tried, but her heart wasn't in it. Yes, Trelawney had been bad. The flame-haired girl was amazed that her friend had kept her temper in the face of such incessant provocation. It would seem that the batty old teacher had encountered several visions over the holidays, all of which had involved Leshia and a terrible dark fate that lay awaiting her. She had spent the whole lesson practically fainting at the sight of the blonde girl. Following this Potions had gone disastrously, as the Slytherins from Divination had seen to it that Leshia would not forget about the mad old woman's ominous words. Every time Leshia had responded to their bating however, Snape had seen to it that she was the one punished for the disruptions. By the end of the lesson she had earned herself another detention.

Leshia groaned furiously and sped up, reaching the portrait well before the other two. By the time they caught up with her the girl was slumped in a settee in front of the fire, her expression murderous. Within moments Rachel and Katie had sandwiched her in and after fifteen minutes Leshia had regained her composure, forcing the frustrating teachers to the back of her mind.

"Hey Leesh," a girl's voice called out from across the common room. Seconds later Jaime Wood had joined the trio of fifth year girls on the settee. "Saw your note up downstairs. Do you want us there too?"

"You're kidding right?" Leshia laughed. "Like I could do it without you lot."

"Well you'd better let us know then," Jaime chuckled. "You're lucky I'm free you know."

"Oh really. What could you possibly be doing tomorrow afternoon?" Leshia quipped. Her younger friend grinned and climbed to her feet again. In the distance the bell was ringing signifying the end of break.

"Oh you know, washing my hair, darning my socks, doing my homework, that sort of thing."

"Well that all sounds terribly thrilling, but if you don't mind, I could use your help tomorrow."

"I'm all yours captain."

With a last humorous salute Jaime disappeared through the portrait hole following her friends to their next lesson. Leshia glanced around and managed to catch sight of Luke and Tom relaxing by a table in the corner. Within moments she'd caught up to them.

"I take it the pair of you know I'd like you to join us tomorrow at the quidditch tryouts."

"Sure thing boss," Luke piped up cheerily. "We sort of assumed you'd be needing our help anyway."

"Yeah, can't imagine you doing tryouts without our expert opinions," Tom added happily. Leshia grinned at the pair and then looked round the common room one last time. There was no sign of Owen or Joss, the remaining players on the team and so Leshia rejoined her friends on the settee and watched as the last of their peers filed out on the way to their lessons.

"Feels so good watching them go knowing we don't have another lesson for a whole hour doesn't it?" Rachel sighed contentedly. Leshia nodded happily at her side.

"A whole hour," she parroted. "What are we going to do with ourselves for a whole hour? I mean we rarely see the common room when it's this deserted."

The girls looked around at the room spotting a few people from their year milling about in a similar state to themselves. There were also a few sixth and seventh years studying at the tables round the edges of the room. For the most part however, the common room was deserted.

"Well I know what I'm doing." This decisive voice had come from Katie and while Leshia and Rachel turned to stare with disgruntled expressions, their friend lifted her satchel onto the settee and started taking out her Potions textbooks and a piece of parchment.

"Why am I not surprised you're starting on our Potions homework barely half an hour after the man set it. You're supposed to let these things settle you know Katie. Good homework is like good wine, the longer you leave it the better it gets," Rachel complained. Katie shot her an amused glare.

"Actually, the quicker you do homework the more you can remember from the lesson you halfwit. Now come on, the pair of you are not going to doss about for an hour. This is a _study _period remember? We're supposed to be _studying_."

"What did she just call me?"

Ignoring Rachel's bemused face turning on her, Leshia spoke up loudly to catch their raven-haired friend's attention, "Katie listen carefully because I'm only going to say this once. We are not, and I repeat, _not _going to do our homework in our first ever free period. So you can just bugger off to the library and leave us in peace because we are going to be doing what we do best."

"What? Dossing around?" Katie asked irritably. Leshia smiled proudly and nodded.

"Exactly."

The moment of frosty silence was thankfully interrupted by a group of very soggy looking fifth year boys tramping into the common room. Most of them headed up the stairs, but two remained behind having seen their favoured female companions sat in front of the fire, the place they most wanted to be right now.

"Morning ladies," Rodeo called cheerily to the girls as he and Parys sat down inches from the roaring flames. They were dripping with muddy water. One look at them broke the tension between the girls.

"You're both mad. Why is it that you can't abandon your stupid ballfoot game for just one day because it's raining cats and dogs?" Rachel asked the boys. They ignored her purposeful mistake and shrugged their shoulders.

"It's the beautiful game Rach," Rodeo replied. "Bit of rain never hurt anyone. Besides, we've got a whole hour to dry off."

"Yeah, we could of stayed out there even longer, but apparently you're not allowed outside during free periods," Parys added with a disgruntled frown.

"Actually," the voice of reason spoke up. Everyone looked to Katie. "You are allowed outside if you're studying. You know, _studying_? What you're supposed to do in our _study_ periods?"

"I wish you'd stop saying the word study like that Katie," Rachel grumbled. "I feel like you're attacking me with it."

"What's got into her?" Rodeo asked with a frown. Leshia and Rachel shrugged their shoulders in unison.

"What do you think? She wants to do homework and we don't, so now she's getting arsey about it," Leshia muttered tiredly.

"I'm not getting arsey! I'm just trying to get you lot to follow the rules that's all because…"

The girl fell silent and hung her head slightly causing the other four to lean forward slightly. That 'because' had seemed particularly ominous.

"I don't much like how you said because either you know," Rachel spoke first, breaking the uncomfortable silence. Leshia hushed the redhead with an urgent wave of her hand and leaned even closer to Katie.

"You're not thinking of doing what I think you're about to do are you?" the blonde girl asked warily. Katie looked up pathetically and she reached into her pocket to take out her prefect's notebook. The other four stared at it with wide eyes as though the girl had pulled out a tiny goblin from her pocket.

"Look, you're supposed to be studying, not dossing around right? I'm a prefect! I can't just let you all break rules like that can I?"

Another silence enveloped the five fifth years. Outside the rain battered against the windows of the tower. The fire crackled comfortingly in the hearth. And somewhere high up in the dormitories someone was playing a wireless as loud as it could go, blasting out one of the latest hits. Everyone continued to stare at Katie.

"Katie Potter!" At last someone had spoken. Everyone's eyes darted from the prefect in their midst to the soaking wet blond boy sat in front of the fire. His moody eyes were glaring at the raven-haired girl. "I thought you'd changed. Don't let that badge rule you. There is no way you are going to docking housepoints from us for relaxing a little during our free period. I know you Katie, there's no way you're going to do that, is there?"

The way he had said the words 'is there' seemed to convey that there was no possible way for Katie to disagree with the boy. There was a magic of sorts in the way he had spoken and everyone looked back to Katie to see she was struggling with a monumental conundrum. Rachel nearly held her breath the tension was so high.

Eventually Katie shook her head and put the notebook back in the pocket of her robes.

"No Rodes," she sighed. "You're right. There's no way I could do that to any of you."

Leshia and Rachel let out audible sighs of relief and they briefly looked to Rodeo, nodding to him in thanks. They couldn't quite imagine what life would become like if Katie started docking housepoints from them for such a minor crime.

Suffice to say, the remainder of the free period went by swimmingly. Katie sat in the corner with a small group of sixth year girls while Leshia and Rachel started an exploding chess tournament with all the fifth year boys. By the end of the hour they were all excitable and overjoyed. Something Professor McGonagall put to rights in their Transfiguration lesson. The day was starting to fly by and soon the fifth years found themselves lining up outside their last lesson of the day: a triple Defence Against the Dark Arts session. Leshia wasn't at all surprised when they arrived in the corridor to find they were sharing this lesson with the Slytherins once again.

She managed to artfully avoid looking at Damian Allseyer's moody face and instead found the slightly amused eyes of Julius Black. The girl glared firmly at him before finding her place at the back of the line with her friends.

'What does he have to look so smug about the whole time?' the girl thought to herself angrily. Putting the peculiar young man to the back of her mind Leshia managed to tune in to the last part of Rachel's amusing blow by blow recount of the game she had just beaten Parys in to be crowned the free period chess queen. Parys was left glaring playfully at the girl, but any chance for a rebuttal never came as the strong loping strides of their teacher instantly caused the fifth years to dart into a straight line, their hands checking their shirts were tucked in almost instinctively. Within moments Professor Malfoy had arrived and looked the line up and down with a small satisfied smile.

"Good afternoon," he told the class. A few of those nearest to the teacher responded, but for the most part the youngsters remained silent. Draco appreciated this year group above any other. They were the classes he had taught the longest leading them to be well trained, but not entirely terrified of him. He had just spent the day grappling with a difficult group of seventh years who cared not for his rules or his punishments and a series of first and second years who were all absolutely terrified of him. The fifth years were a breath of fresh air in comparison.

"Please, come in," the teacher spoke up and he opened the door allowing the stream of pupils to file past him. They all avoided his eye apart from one towards the back of the line who rewarded him with a beaming smile. Draco rolled his eyes fondly at the girl before he strode into the classroom behind his class. He watched as they took their usual seats, some of them noticing with interest that at last Argus Filch had got his way and they seemed to have a new set of desks to deface.

The old ones had become positively littered with exclamations akin to 'Prof Malfoy is well fit'. The little blighters who had defaced the desk had done so with everlast ink, which a very determined Filch had not managed to clean from the desks despite several hundred hours of scrubbing. Dumbledore had been refusing to allow him to replace the desks, as he believed graffiti was a valid form of expression at Hogwarts and a part of its history. Four years of the old caretaker nagging however, had finally taken its toll on the headmaster and he had finally agreed to get new desks for the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, providing they kept some of the more detailed old desks in the staffroom as a form of entertainment for the teachers. Draco had been highly bemused when he walked in on the first day to find a gaggle of his colleagues gathered round sniggering about some of the more poetic scrawls. He'd had quite enough of them quoting them too. If he heard Severus Snape mention his 'ocean-blue eyes' one more time he was going to snap and do something quite reckless.

As for this new set of desks, they seemed to be enchanted in some way to prevent any more mutilation. No doubt it would only take a matter of weeks for the more determined defacers of the school to find a way round this, but for now at least Argus Filch was happy.

Leshia felt a little perturbed by the untouched oak desk staring back at her as she sat down. She reached out and ran her fingers along the smooth wood. In her time in her father's lessons she had memorised every single scratch, dent and scrawl her old desk had held. For some strange reason, she missed it, particularly the additions she herself had added over the years.

"I trust you all enjoyed your summer holidays," Draco spoke loudly, reclaiming the attention of his pupils. Some of them were nodding. "Good, but let's not forget that we are now back at school. That means you're going to have to try and find a way to stay awake Mister Holsson!"

A few rows behind the girls Rodeo sat up sharply in his chair. Draco smiled darkly at the youngster, holding his gaze longer than Rodeo felt comfortable with, before turning back on the class.

"Thank you. Right then, you're probably wondering what we're going to be doing this year. Over the last few years we have alternated between learning about dark magical creatures, basic curses and how you might defend yourselves against them. This year will be the last year of your OWL course, therefore the summer term will be taken up going over everything you have learnt in your time here at Hogwarts, as any of it might come up in your exams."

Across the room the youngsters glanced to one another out of the corners of their eyes and grimaced as much as they dared.

"In the meantime however, we will be spending the next two terms addressing an area of dark magic that we have so far neglected. Has anyone got any idea what this might be?"

Across the room a smattering of hands went up into the air.

"Yes Miss White?"

"The unforgettable curses Professor?" Nicola White, one of Leshia, Katie and Rachel's dormitory mates, asked hesitantly. Draco smiled wryly and nodded.

"They will form a part of this year yes. Any other suggestions? Mister Black?"

"Death Eaters sir and other dark wizards," the boy spoke clearly. Everyone turned to stare at him and then back to their teacher who was smiling darkly.

"Got it in one Mister Black. You are of course correct in saying that so far in our learning we have neglected to mention the very worst of the dark magical creatures we know about: the human. We are capable of more death and destruction than any of the animals you have learnt about in this classroom. Over the next two terms we will learn all about Death Eaters and dark wizards. You will learn how to recognise them, how to defend yourself against them and how to protect yourselves against their power."

Across the room the youngsters remained absolutely silent. This sounded far better than they had anticipated. Draco watched them quietly for a moment before he spun his blackboard round, revealing two words emblazoned in bright white chalk on the dark board. For a moment the pupils stared at the words before one by one their attention was caught by their teacher. He was fingering the edge of his sleeve and for the first time he seemed unsure. Leshia's jaw was slowly dropping. Was he about to? Surely not! He had never willingly shown it to her in his life. Surely he wasn't going to reveal it to a class full of teenagers and then openly discuss it.

It would seem however, that he was. In a quick motion that seemed to pain the teacher he pulled his sleeve back to reveal a faded tattoo. It bore the skull and snake of the Death Eater's mark. It was Voldemort's sign. The teenagers remained deadly silent, watching their teacher with renewed fear.

"I was once a Death Eater," Draco told the class. "I know you all knew that, but I feel it must be said. I was very young, only slightly older than you are now, when I became one. It was _not_ my choice." The man glanced briefly to his daughter, an apology of sorts in his eyes.

"I wasn't one for very long, just two short years. To me however, they were the longest years of my life. After that I spent the rest of my life hunting down the remaining Death Eaters in the world and bringing them to justice for their wrongdoings until there were none left, or so we thought. I am possibly one of the most knowledgeable people alive about that dark world and that is why I am going to teach you about it. You need to know how to protect yourselves against people who want nothing more than to see you tortured and killed. I know I won't surprise any of you when I say the dark following is on the rise once more. There are almost certainly new Death Eaters being sworn in. They are no longer extinct I am very sad to say… Yes Mister Allseyer?"

The sudden end of their teacher's narrative, one that had held the audience captivated, took a while to register in the teenagers' minds. Finally though, each and every one of them turned to stare at Damian Allseyer, who seemed to have gone very pale.

"Just because the newspapers keep ragging on about Death Eaters and the dark rising doesn't make it true," the boy spat venomously. Draco's brow lowered and he stared the boy down for a moment. He too had noticed what Leshia had, Damian Allseyer had changed.

"I agree," Draco finally replied, his voice light and simple.

"My father says there is no dark rising. My father say it's all lies to keep us under control. My father says…"

"And your father is what may I ask?" Draco interrupted coldly.

"What? What do you mean?" Allseyer growled.

"I mean to say, what line of work is your father in? If you don't mind me asking."

Allseyer shifted in his seat, his face a perfect picture of rage.

"I do mind you asking. It's none of your business!"

"Alistair Allseyer. Yes, I have come across his name many a time. Especially as it appears on my annual taxation summary. He works for the ministry does he not? In the accounts department?"

A few Gryffindors hid their chuckles with coughs while across the room Damian Allseyer bristled once more, his expression mutilating into hatred.

"What does that matter? It doesn't mean anything," Allseyer hissed. Draco sighed and realised what he was doing was cruel. To put this young man in his place in front of his peers is what a lesser man would do.

"You're right. It is irrelevant. I apologise," the teacher offered, to which Allseyer surprisingly nodded and looked down at his desk. Draco looked back to the class of pupils. "However, I am very well placed to tell you with authority that though Mr Allseyer is right and the newspapers are full of lies, there is a dark following growing in this country. I know this not from reading the Daily Prophet nor do I know this from listening to scare mongers on the wireless. I know this because it is my job to know these things. I cannot tell you any more on the matter."

Draco stopped speaking and he watched as every member of his class deflated slightly in their seats. They had been sat up straight, their attention rapt by what their teacher had been saying.

"Put your hand up if you are afraid of Death Eaters or the dark following."

Some of the youngsters sniggered slightly under their breath while Draco stared them all down. He watched them all, sitting there, far too proud to admit the obvious. He could see a few hands hovering over desks, waiting to tentatively make their way into the air. With a small smile he decided to help them and he stuck his own hand high into the air. The titters died down and slowly other hands joined his until eventually almost every hand in the classroom was in the air.

"I'm glad most of you seem to have a healthy sense of self preservation. Even in all my time fighting these people I still fear them slightly. They are dangerous and unpredictable. If you don't fear them now, by the time we have finished this part of the course you will have changed your minds. Now then, what I am about to do is one of the hardest parts of my job. I initially refused to do it, but I was convinced that by now you are old enough to understand and that you must know what you are up against. I am about to pass around a selection of photographs and case notes that I collected when I was an auror for the ministry. If the images frighten you too much then please, do not feel pressured to look at them. We will spend half an hour looking at the evidence and then we will discuss what we have found. By the end of today's lesson we will have enough evidence to write your first piece of homework."

Draco ignored the few groans that went round the room and started writing a title up on the board. The teenagers waited patiently for him to finish. It was a simple title: _Why Death Eaters are Evil_.

Despite the gravity of the last five minutes Leshia turned to Rachel and grinned. This was a piece of homework even they wouldn't mind doing. At the front of the room Draco was picking up a box Leshia had seen many a time before. She had even had the gory privilege of sorting it out once into some sort of system. Seeing it made the girl feel slightly relieved. She wasn't in the mood for any nasty surprises. Little did she know, the last time Draco had allowed her to see the cases he had removed the most disturbing cases. She had been too young, still was in his opinion, but Albus was convinced that fifth years were ready to know the truth. They had a right to know what Death Eaters were capable of, as almost certainly some of them would soon become vulnerable to the persuasions of these very people. Those in Slytherin might soon be cajoled into joining the same as he once was. Draco had to protect them from this.

"You will be working in groups of five. Once you have arranged yourselves into your groups, please come and collect a case from the box. You will have half an hour to try and read and look at as many cases as you can."

Instinctively Leshia, Katie and Rachel turned around and found Parys and Rodeo climbing to their feet and making their way over to them. Katie went off to get their first case file while the remaining four youngsters stared at each other awkwardly.

"You know if it weren't so bloody scary, this would be wicked," Parys spoke up. Leshia grinned and nodded.

"I know what you mean. I don't think my dad's very happy about teaching us this stuff."

"Who made him do you think?" Rachel asked curiously. Katie was heading back now, her face a little paler, her expression anxious. She had caught a look at the picture on the front of the file and dearly wished she hadn't. Leshia looked away from the bespectacled girl and back to the others.

"Dumbledore of course. Who else?"

By now Katie had arrived and she delicately placed the case file down on the desks the others had pushed together. They all looked at the image on the front and then looked away again. Leshia fought the urge to retch right there and then. She had never seen this case before.

"Right then," Katie spoke up shakily. "Who doesn't want to look at the pictures?"

Simultaneously everyone stuck their hand up.

"Oh come on," Leshia grumbled and she pulled her hand down. "We've got to be grown up about this. My dad wouldn't let Dumbledore push him around if he really didn't think we could handle it. If anyone actually starts vomiting then, and only then, are they exempt from looking at the pictures. But only on that file! Agreed?"

The others nodded grimly and as one they all looked back to the picture. Parys started retching theatrically. Rachel grinned roguishly and clapped the boy on the back a few times firmly.

"We don't believe you Parys, now pull it together and let's get started. There's a lot of these to get through and I don't want to have to stay after class and go through these alone because to be honest I think I'd wet myself with fright to be left alone with these."

X

As the final bell rang for the end of the day the fifth years were delighted to get out of the classroom. It had been an eye opener, but a highly unwelcome one for many of the teenagers. As predicted, there would be the annual flock of angry letters from parents arriving on Draco's desk berating him for showing their precious little darlings the horrors of the real world, which he would immediately pass on to the headmaster to sort through. It was his idea after all.

Most of the youngsters were gone before the bell had stopped ringing. Only one however, had remained behind, lingering at her desk, watching as her father put the files away carefully in the tattered cardboard box. Draco wasn't surprised.

"You're angry with me," he sighed, before looking up and catching Leshia's eye. "Angry that I always ignored your questions about the mark and now I've shown your whole class and discussed it openly."

Leshia shrugged her shoulders. In truth, she had been a little bit annoyed about that yes. Draco nodded resignedly.

"Let me make on thing clear. I did not show you that mark and tell you about it as your father do you understand? I was doing it as your teacher and because I have been told that this is what I must teach. I still don't want to talk about it," Draco explained firmly.

"I know that dad," Leshia sighed. "I'm just a bit surprised, that's all. I mean all of this, it's really quite scary isn't it?"

Draco held the girl's gaze a little longer before he smiled and reached out his hand to her. The teenager looked like she wanted to remain by her desk, aloofly refusing the show of affection, but she wasn't like that, not really. Within moments she was at his side, wrestled under Draco's arm and pulled firmly to his side.

"I know it's scary," he agreed quietly. "And even though I think you're all too young to find out about all this now, I do agree that you should know what you're up against. The dark world of magic is scary and it's growing. If I can arm you all against it as much as I can then I'm doing my job well."

"Right," Leshia agreed and she looked down at her feet. "I bet you didn't teach this stuff to your fifth years when you first started working here though did you?"

Draco grinned at his daughter's perceptiveness. Sometimes she was all Hermione.

"No, you're right. It was the year after Lucius reappeared if you must know. Anyway, you don't want to hang around with an old man like me your second day back. Go on, get back to your friends."

Leshia grinned and nodded. Before she darted out the door though, she quickly threw her arms around her father's chest and hugged him firmly. Draco was left watching the door she had left by with a tight feeling across his chest, though Leshia's hug had little to do with it.

Meanwhile Leshia was sprinting to catch up with her friends. She did so just before they reached the portrait and together they tumbled inside. Katie headed straight for their usual window box and threw her satchel down on the table beside it. There was no doubting her intentions to get started on their homework and as such Leshia and Rachel left her to it. While Rachel collapsed onto a settee with Rodeo and Parys, dislodging an unlucky bunch of third years who were relegated by the arrival of the fifth years, Leshia looked around the room for the remaining two members of her quidditch team.

Joss was easy to spot, as the seventh year girl was only a few meters away on one of the other settees. The moment she saw Leshia approaching she smiled and held her hands up.

"Don't worry, I'm free for tomorrow," the older girl called out. One look at her neighbours on the settee – Luke and Tom – revealed how she knew what Leshia was coming to ask and so after a grateful smile Leshia turned around to see if she could spot Owen. There was still no sign of the boy and with a disgruntled frown Leshia realised she hadn't seen any sign of him all day.

There were a group of sixth year girls sitting at a table towards the back of the room and so Leshia wandered over to them. They looked up happily at the arrival of the popular girl.

"Hi Leshia," Sarah Weasley, a cousin of Katie and Rachel, greeted the fifth year girl. Leshia smiled at her and the other sixth years.

"What's up?" Amy Weasley, yet another cousin, asked.

"I don't suppose you lot know where I could find Owen do you? I need to tell him something about quidditch," Leshia explained, feeling awkward at having to ask after the boy. If this got back to him the growth in his ego would be unstoppable.

"I think they're all in the library," Sarah replied. Leshia smiled and nodded.

"Thanks." She turned to go, but then stopped. "Oh. If you wouldn't mind not mentioning this to him, the me looking for him thing, then I'd be really grateful!"

Sarah and Amy grinned at one another, but nodded anyway leaving Leshia to dart off to the portrait hole. On the way she made a detour via Katie, stealing one of her many library books. Katie's cries of "I was using that!" were lost however, as Leshia was out of the room in a flash. She ran all the way to the library doors where she stopped and got her breath back. Making sure her face didn't betray any of her breathlessness Leshia ambled inside in as nonchalant way as she could manage. She noticed the sixth year boys immediately, but pretended she hadn't and headed for the librarian instead.

"Hi Madam Pince," the girl spoke up politely, catching the attention of the stern librarian.

"Good afternoon Miss Malfoy," the woman replied stiltedly.

"I just wanted to return this book. It's in Katie Potter's name by the way," Leshia told the librarian. The elderly woman nodded as she took the heavy tome from the youngster. "Thanks Madam Pince." Leshia turned to go, but then made an obvious effort to notice Owen Gabriel and his friends sat nearby. "Oh, hi Owen. What are you doing here?"

The tall boy looked up from his work and grinned dashingly at his friend.

"Do you know what shorty, I think, now I'm not sure, but I think I'm working," the boy replied. Leshia rolled her eyes and wandered over.

"Yes I can see that. What are you doing?" Her eyes roved over the complicated magic the boys were copying into their notes. They all seemed to be doing different things.

"Transfiguration," Owen replied and he stretched his long arms out above his head. Leshia looked away shyly from the patch of skin that became visible as Owen's shirt rode up. "I had two hours of it this morning and I still don't think I understand any of what McGonagall was going on about."

Leshia almost expressed her sympathy for her friend when she saw the way his expression fell, but she knew such an act of sentimentality would get her ridiculed by his friends. So instead she shrugged her shoulders.

"I bet they start you off on really hard stuff to make you get in the habit of working really hard," she tried. Owen grinned wryly.

"Well it's working! But I don't know when you're supposed to find the time to get anything done. I've got Defence Against the Dark Arts in a minute and I bet that'll be really hard too," he complained. Leshia frowned, wanting to say lessons had finished, but then she remembered the new structure of the timetable.

"We had Defence Against the Dark Arts just now. It was really rough. We had to look at all these cases where Death Eaters brutalised and murdered people," the girl explained with a grim expression. At her words the other boys looked up.

"Oh you had that lesson did you?" Owen commiserated. "I remember that. It doesn't get much better either this term. Some of that stuff is really mental."

"I bet yours won't be any better," Leshia complained with a grin. "I mean we're only doing our OWLs. What'll you have to do for your NEWTs?"

"Don't make me think about it!"

"Sorry. Hey Owen, while I remember, tomorrow I'm doing quidditch tryouts for chasers. Do you think you can make it? I'm holding them at quarter to six down on the quidditch pitch."

"I'd love to be there shorty, count me in," Owen replied cheerily. His friends started climbing to their feet. It was nearly time for their afternoon lessons to start. Owen too started packing his stuff together. "Do you know what you're going to get them to do yet?"

Leshia forced a confident expression onto her face. So she hadn't thought about it yet, but Owen needn't know that.

"Oh yeah. I've got it all sorted out."

X

The following day and Leshia did finally have everything sorted out. It was a good thing they had a two-hour free between break and lunch, because she had used this time to draw up a plan and collect the necessary equipment. The afternoon's lessons lasting till five thirty had been a rather painful slog. Particularly as they had started with a half an hour History of Magic lesson, which had put most of them to sleep. Leshia had tried to stay awake, as the subject sounded somewhat interesting: the rise of Voldemort. Professor Binns though, had lulled her into a slumber leaving her sleepy throughout the following charms lesson.

The girl couldn't help but wake up after their afternoon break however, as the fifth years were to endure another hour-long gruelling Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson in which they were confronted with yet more gruesome evidence to add to their essays. Leshia and her friends couldn't have been happier to get out of the lesson. Katie and Rachel kindly offered to help Leshia levitate all the equipment down to the quidditch pitch where they found the rest of the squad waiting for instructions. There were quite a few Gryffindors already waiting in a neat line. The sight of them all made Leshia feel a jolt of excitement. These people were all here because she had asked them to come and in a moment they would all look to her for instructions.

Once they had reached the pitch Leshia called her team over and asked them to help her set up the areas. She had been incredibly organised and had made up a little diagram of each area for her team to easily replicate. Owen's grin had a distinctly teasing tone to it as he took his diagram and went off to set up the stealth flying course. Once her team members were setting up the different areas Leshia wandered along to where the hopefuls had lined up. She noticed with a smirk that Rodeo and Parys had somehow shouldered their way to the front.

"Afternoon," she called out and then added unnecessarily, "I'm the Gryffindor captain."

"Yeah we know," a voice called from the line. It sounded distinctly Weasleyish. Leshia grinned and shrugged her shoulders.

"I hope you all know that the only position we're looking for today is chaser. There are going to be a series of trials ending in a small game. I know all your names obviously, but I'm still going to give you numbers because it makes it easier to sort you out. There's a fair few of you you see." The girl paused and looked down the line to see at least thirty faces staring back at her. "Okay, so if you go and form a line in front of Katie she'll give you your number."

The hopefuls stampeded off to where Katie was waiting patiently. One by one she used her wand to emblazon a glowing number on the fronts and backs of the hopefuls. A few girls seemed concerned that a prized piece of clothing had just been ruined, but Katie assured them the numbers would wear off in a few hours. Within ten minutes all the areas had been set up and the hopefuls had all been numbered.

Leshia expertly organised her hopefuls into the different activities. It had been Katie's idea to use numbers as it made it far easier to give orders if they were as simple as, "Numbers one to five go to the agility area." Each area had a member of the team judging the performance of the hopefuls with a clipboard and quill Leshia had provided (again, one of Katie's ideas).

As the drills got underway Leshia flew from one to the next with her own clipboard. She was able to see all the hopefuls and her teammates were quick to alert her to the hopefuls they thought needed their captain's opinion. Leshia felt secretly very pleased every time she saw Rodeo performing at one of the trials. He was doing splendidly well and most of her teammates seemed to agree with her.

After forty-five minutes the hopefuls had been given a turn at all the trials on offer and Leshia, with the help of her team, had narrowed the list down to six potential chasers. The most difficult part of the whole afternoon was when Leshia gathered the hopefuls around herself to announce which six had made it through. Sophie Gabriel, William Lloyd, Laura Weasley, Magnus Black, Sally Michaels and Rodeo were all delighted when their names were read out, but the others hung their heads dejectedly and cleared the pitch. Parys alone didn't seem too hurt by it and merely thumped Rodeo on the shoulder before he ambled over to where Rachel and Katie were sat watching the proceedings.

"Okay guys," Leshia called to the chosen six. "Sophie, Rodeo and Laura you'll be team one. Will, Magnus and Sally. You're team two. Uh, the team number you're in means nothing by the way. Okay, so team one, you'll get Luke as your keeper and team two, you're getting Tom. We figured it would be fairest this way because they're both as bad as each other."

"Cheers Malfoy," Luke called down from his broom. He was hovering above the group.

"We'll play first to ten goals. If we've got time we'll try it again. Remember it's not just about how well you can fly and how well you can score goals. It's also about how well you can adapt to a new team and how well you pass and catch. Everyone ready?" Leshia looked from one eager face to the next before she nodded. "To your positions then."

Even though the game was only small it was nonetheless exciting to watch. The potential chasers did well. Leshia hovered just above the level of play with Owen, Joss and Jaime at her side. They were all quite impressed with the standard of the players, but it became clear that they were divided on who they thought was the best.

"No way is Holsson better than Sophie," Owen grumbled when he noticed Leshia put another tick by Rodeo's name on her notes. She had been giving ticks every time she saw one of the hopefuls do something impressive.

"Owen! Stop looking at my notes!"

"Well you're mad if you think he's better, that's all I'm saying," the tall boy complained. Leshia rolled her eyes, but tried to ignore her friend.

"I agree with Leesh you know," Jaime now spoke up. "Look at that! He made a pass without even looking up."

"Yeah, that's because Sophe called to him," Owen countered.

"The point is he heard her and didn't need to look up to know where she was. He made an accurate pass without even needing to take his eye of the goal," Jaime pointed out.

"Yeah, he does that in football too when he's passing," Leshia agreed. The other three turned to stare at her with an assortment of expressions. Jaime seemed amused, Joss perplexed and Owen downright hostile. "Just saying. It's something I've noticed."

"Sophie does have a beautiful way of finishing off goals though," Joss now spoke up. Owen smiled smugly.

"Exactly. Holsson's not nearly as good." As he spoke though Leshia watched with a satisfied smile as Rodeo intercepted a pass by the opposing team and easily threw the ball through the hoop directly behind Tom. Owen bristled slightly. "Lucky throw."

"That makes ten," Leshia called out to the players, ignoring Owen's anger and instead looking at her watch. There were ten minutes till dinner. She felt she had enough information to go on. Within moments she had congratulated the hopefuls on an amazing performance and had assured them that she would inform them of the results in person over the next few days. As they walked off chatting happily to each other Leshia sighed and wished she could go with them, but there was a lot to do.

Her team chatted about the potential chasers while Leshia supervised them bringing the equipment in. Leshia herself didn't feel she could join in the conversations. She knew where Owen, Jaime and Joss stood and soon found out from listening in to Tom and Luke's exuberant conversation that they deemed Rodeo the better chaser. Leshia suppressed a smile when she heard this.

By the time the team had deposited the equipment in the quidditch supplies cupboard dinner was well under way. The team rushed into the hall without bothering to change leaving Leshia locking the cupboard up and heading in the direction of the staff room to leave the key in Madam Hooch's pigeon hole. She hadn't realised one of the others had remained behind.

"If you choose Holsson everyone'll accuse you of favouritism you know."

Leshia narrowed her eyes in annoyance and turned around to see Owen loitering a few feet away. She glowered at him.

"Everyone or just you?"

"You know Sophie was better than your friend. Just admit it," Owen persisted. Leshia's glare darkened.

"No Owen, that's what you thought. Most of the team thought Rodes was better. It was just you and Joss who thought otherwise," Leshia countered coldly. "Your sister was very good, but Rodeo was better and I'll be choosing him to be our new chaser."

A filthy look crossed Owen's usually cheerful face and he stalked off towards the great hall, pushing past Leshia as he went. For a moment the blonde girl stood shaking in anger, before she shook herself out of her mood and wandered off to hand the key back in. If Owen wanted to act like a child just because he didn't get his way then he could, but she would not stoop to his level.

X

Over the next few days Rodeo walked around with a ridiculously pleased expression on his face. Owen however, had taken to glaring at Leshia whenever he saw her and this distressed the blonde girl more than she wanted to admit. By Friday everything had settled down a bit and Leshia was happy that she had organised the first Gryffindor training session for the following morning. When Owen saw how well Rodeo fitted into the team and how well he could fly, he would soon shake himself out of his mood.

Before this though Leshia and her friends had to get through their second Ancient Runes lesson of the week. It had been a difficult morning with an hour long Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology and a gruelling hour of Potions. Leshia was hoping Tripper hadn't reverted back to his insane self in the days that had passed, as she didn't think she could face him after the morning she'd had. Luckily, as the class were beckoned into the classroom by a timid greasy Professor Tripper Leshia realised with glee that he was still the snivelling wreck he had been on Monday.

Leshia and her friends commandeered the desks at the back of the room and watched their teacher with interest. He was writing something up on the board in a messy script. It seemed to be an essay title. When he turned around, the teenagers were staring at him with bemused expressions on their faces.

"Good morning class," Tripper called out to the group. When they didn't respond he started to fiddle with his hands. "Yes well er right. Let's get started eh? Now then. Er, after Monday's lesson when you took notes on the Anesh family of Runes I feel you must all be experts now then eh? Right?"

The class stared dumbstruck at the professor. One hour's worth of note taking and he considered them experts? The first year of their course, the only year when they had enjoyed the benefit of a good Ancient Runes teacher in the form of Professor Granger, the youngsters had been given a whole term to learn about one family of runes. How could one hour's self-taught study equate to a term's worth of careful guidance by an expert?

"So I thought, seeing as er, seeing as you're all so good with the Anesh family you could tie it in to my little test that I gave Miss Potter on Monday. You see, I thought you could er do a conversion between the Anesh family of runes and the Hakeh family of runes and then er come up with a working translatory framework. Then er you add this into your essay which compares and contrasts the er two families on the five spines of rune comparison."

Katie's jaw dropped, shortly followed by all the other jaws in the room. Never, ever, had they been set a task so challenging.

"So er, I thought you could start today and get it done by say er… Monday?"

"Sir!" The strangled cry had come from across the room. It was a mousy girl in Ravenclaw who went by the name Daisy Cartwright who had spoken up. Tripper squinted down his nose at her.

"Yes Miss Mitten?" A few of the youngsters sniggered.

"Miss Cartwright sir," Daisy corrected the quivering teacher.

"Yes that's what I meant. Miss Cartwright what is it?"

"Sir we can't possibly do all that by Monday," the girl gushed out and then held her hand over her mouth in shock at having just challenged Professor Tripper. Such an act last year would have seen her thrown from the room and her evenings booked up in detention for the rest of the term.

This Tripper however, was not the same man that had terrorised these studious pupils for the duration of their fourth year. This man was far less powerful and far more…snivelly. His eyes darted from Daisy's worried face to the other astounded pupils.

"What I meant to say er, was that you should have it ready by next Monday of course. Er, right." Still the faces seemed taken aback. "I meant to say uh, two weeks on Monday of course and in the meantime you can uh do self study during our lessons in the library to get the er work done. Yes. Right."

Katie was starting to tremble.

"Can we go now sir?" Leshia called out. Tripper winced slightly at the sound of her voice and nodded quickly.

"Yes yes, er off you go."

Within moments Rachel and Leshia had supported a now violently shaking Katie out of the classroom. Any second now and their friend was going to explode. They just hoped they could get her down the corridor and into the relatively secluded girls' toilets before she did, to save her dignity if anything.

They succeeded. Only just.

"That…that…that!" Katie stammered the moment the other two launched her through the open bathroom door and into the girls toilets.

"Calm down Katie," Rachel warned. "Remember to breath."

Leshia took one look at Katie's scarlet face and backed away into the sinks. She started running one of the taps.

"That…that!" Katie fumbled with an adequate enough swear word. She couldn't get her mind to do it though and any second now she would break. Katie wheeled on the other two, who were stood by the sinks and Leshia took her chance and lunged at the tap. The water hit Katie directly in the face.

For a few seconds all that could be heard was the running of the tap. Everyone was holding their breath. Finally Katie exhaled and she reached to her face to push the wet tendrils of hair away from her eyes.

"Thanks Leesh," she sighed. Rachel melted against the side of the sink while Leshia nodded quickly at their friend.

"No problem," she replied in a strained sounding voice. Katie noticed.

"I'm not going to blow up anymore, don't worry."

"Thank heavens for that," Rachel finally spoke up. "You had me really worried there. I don't think I've ever seen you like that before."

"Yeah well I don't think I've ever been that cross before," Katie agreed sadly. After taking a few moments to dry her face with a quick spell, Katie led her friends back into the corridor. In the distance they could see their classmates heading for the library.

"For your information," Rachel began happily. "Any of the following words would have worked: pillock, tosser, berk, imbecile, nob, git, bastard…"

"Yes thank you Rachel," Katie chuckled. "You know lots of insults. I'll remember that next time."

"Next time?" Leshia demanded. "Katie if you ever get like that again I'm calling an exorcist!"

Katie laughed loudly and she shook her head.

"I'll be prepared next time," she uttered firmly.

"Prepared for what exactly?" Rachel asked worriedly.

"For Tripper's madness, that's what! He's absolutely off his trolley. That essay he asked us to do is without a doubt the hardest thing anyone has ever asked us to do and he wanted to give us two days to do it in. He's absolutely bonkers."

"That, or he doesn't have a clue about runes," Leshia sighed. "I suspect it's the latter. The man's an imbecile, a snivelly scaredy-cat imbecile. You know how we're going to get this done right?" Rachel and Katie shook their heads. "We're going to have to ask my mum and she's going to go mental and then my dad'll be annoyed with us because he'll be the one that has to hear about it all the time, but at least we'll get our essays done."

X

Hermione stretched contentedly and smiled at the sight in front of her. It had been a very lazy Saturday morning so far. Draco had kindly got up and fed the baby leaving Hermione to shuffle out in her dressing gown well past ten to find Draco lying on the settee, a pile of essay on his stomach and little Evie sprawled on the carpet with an array of toys to keep her happy. Every now and then she had been delightedly showing Draco something, to which he would respond enthusiastically before getting back to his work.

Hermione could have stared at this scene for the rest of the day.

"Morning," Draco called out to her.

"Mamamama!" Evie added happily and she pushed herself to her feet with the aid of the coffee table. Within seconds the baby had tumbled over to Hermione's feet allowing her to lift Evie from the ground and into a cuddle. Evie gabbled constantly sounding delighted.

"It's lovely to see you too darling," the mother cooed over her youngest, before she ambled over to her husband and sat down at his side. "Good morning you."

Draco leaned up and kissed his wife gently before he pulled her down at his side.

"You've been asleep a long time," he said curiously. "I haven't seen you sleep like this in a long time. Could it be that you're…"

"What?" Hermione laughed. "Pregnant?" Draco shrugged his shoulders eliciting an adoring smile from his wife. "Not yet darling, we've only been trying a few weeks."

"Well you never know, the last two times we didn't exactly try very hard. In fact, as I recall they both just sort of happened. There was no trying involved," Draco replied with a shrug.

"Yes thank you darling," Hermione chuckled and he covered Evie's ears dramatically. "But I'd rather you didn't reveal to our youngest that she was an A-C-C-I-D-E-N-T. Nor to our oldest for that matter."

"Evie doesn't understand the word accident yet, do you Evie?" Draco asked the baby, who turned a curious face on her father for a moment before she happily started devouring the end of her sleeve. Hermione rolled her eyes fondly and she reached out to stroke Draco's stubbly cheek.

"It might be a bit different this time, you never know. I'm just so happy you want to try again," the beautiful woman gushed and she kissed Draco lovingly. He smiled sadly and shook his head.

"Don't be like that," he sighed. "You know when I was younger, before I met you, before any of this, I always saw myself with three children. I guess now I'll finally get what I wanted."

"I know you're worried about your father though."

Draco's grey eyes shot onto Hermione for a moment and he sat up sharply. In one firm move he pulled his wife and baby daughter towards him.

"Don't talk about him," he spoke gently, but there was passion in his voice. "Don't bring him into this happy place. I am through running from him. I am through living in his shadow. If we want three children, then we will damn well have three children. I won't let him get in the way of our happiness. I promise you that!"

Hermione felt her nose prickling and she smiled.

"I know darling," she whispered. In her lap Evie started getting restless. She couldn't understand why her parents seemed so emotional. All she wanted was to get back to her toys on the floor. Hermione kissed the top of her baby's curly head and placed her lovingly on the floor.

There was a knock at the door and moments later it opened meaning it could be just one person. No one else would wander into the chambers uninvited.

"Are you decent?" a young voice called from around the corner by the front door.

"Define decent," Draco called back.

"Dad don't be disgusting. I can hear Evie, so you'd better not be ruining her childhood by scarring her with images of the pair of you, you know, getting off and all that gross stuff that I understand you have to do because you sort of love each other, but I'd prefer it if you just…"

"Leshia don't make me come over there and get you," Draco warned fondly. Moments later the quidditch uniform clad girl appeared, her expression ready to turn disgusted should her parents be engaged in what she had so tactfully described as 'that gross stuff'. Seeing them fully clothed and sitting side by side on the settee with the baby playing at their feet she smiled instead and flounced in to drop down onto her father's armchair. At the sight of her Evie started wobbling over to her.

"You're up late," the teenager remarked seeing her mother's pyjama clad appearance. Hermione grinned and shrugged her shoulders.

"Your father's been treating me to a few lie ins while he sees to the baby," the mother explained simply. Leshia frowned and turned a suspicious look on her father.

"Why? What are you after?" she asked suspiciously. Draco grinned and lobbed an inkpot at the girl. Thankfully he had attached the lid to it before he did so, but it gave Leshia a fright nonetheless.

"It's always such a pleasure when you come to visit us my dearest," Draco sighed with feigned contentedness. "But I can see that it's you who wants something so come on, out with it."

Leshia grinned charmingly and paused for a moment to lift Evie off the floor and into a quick hug. Within seconds the baby was requesting to be put down again and so the older sister obeyed.

"Well," the girl spoke eventually, looking at Hermione with a hopeful expression. "You see the thing is, Tripper's gone and set us a really difficult piece of homework and I was hoping I could come round for dinner this evening and pick your brain over it."

"How difficult?" Hermione asked with a frown. Leshia grimaced and looked away for a moment. "Leshia, how difficult?"

"Do you remember last year when I came round with that really difficult essay me and Rachel were trying to finish? And you were sort of shocked by how hard it was?" Hermione narrowed her eyes slightly and nodded, urging the girl to go on silently. "Well it's sort of, well, it's about ten times harder than that basically and we've only got two weeks to do it."

For a moment Hermione seethed quietly, before finally she nodded.

"Of course I'll help you darling. Bring it round tonight and we'll have a look at it together." There was a forced cheeriness to her mother's tone that worried Leshia.

"Mum you're not going to say anything to Tripper are you? Because that would be mortifying. You know that don't you?" Leshia stated firmly. Hermione looked away guiltily, while Draco, who was still at her side shook his head firmly.

"Of course she's not going to do that Leesh, don't worry," he answered on behalf of his wife. Leshia looked to her mother's furious form, but took Draco's word for it.

"Okay then."

"So I hear you pulled off some pretty impressive quidditch tryouts the other day," Draco began conversationally, but Leshia was already climbing to her feet. The girl paused for a moment and smiled shyly.

"Let me guess, Madam Hooch told you," she complained weakly. Draco smiled dashingly and nodded.

"Well you did tell her about it in great detail. She was very impressed with you. Is that where you're off to now? Practice?"

Leshia looked down at her clothes and then back up at her father with a wrinkled brow.

"No," she eventually replied and she started heading for the door. "I'm trying to start a new fashion trend. Do you think it'll catch on?"

"Get out of here," Draco called after the girl. Leshia's drain-like laughter accompanied her out of the chambers leaving her parents smiling fondly at each other. Down on the rug Evie looked up and stared at them with a beautifully confused expression.

"One day Evie, you're going to be just like that. I can already tell you know. You mark my words. You're another one that's going to be a cocky so-and-so."

"Draco!"

X

Leshia stared at the immobile form of Jaime Wood with tears running down her face. On the other side of the room Rodeo and Owen were being held apart by the remaining members of the team while Madam Pomfry tried desperately to sort out who was wounded from those who weren't. How had everything gone so badly wrong?

The training session had began relatively well. Leshia had delivered a rousing motivational speech about the team going for a record fifth consecutive quidditch cup this year, which would match the former record holders. The team had seemed eager to please and as they threw themselves into Leshia's well thought out training exercises the new captain had prided herself on an excellent first training.

Somehow though, amidst training exercises that had been too difficult, bad leadership decisions and communication leading to mid air collisions and bad people management skills leading to Owen and Rodeo throwing fists at one another twenty feet above the ground, the training session had dissolved into disaster.

Now here they were, in the hospital wing of all places. Poor Jaime had a broken arm and a cracked skull, which would take several hours to heal. Tom and Luke were being treated for concussion and Rodeo needed some urgent wand-work to mend his split lip. Not to mention Owen's broken nose!

How had it come to this?

All Leshia could do was watch the chaos unfolding. Madam Pomfry had called for help and now Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall were successfully separating the sparring boys and sending all the injured to separate sides of the hospital wing. Leshia looked away from the mutinous expressions they were casting her. Yes, she deserved their scorn. She was not a good captain.

With a resigned sigh the girl wiped at the tears that had coursed down her cheeks and climbed to her feet. She didn't speak to her broken team as she walked out of the room and made her way across the school to a well-known location. Most pupils had the good fortune not to have been called to this place in all their time at the school. Leshia was not one of these. She had lost count of the amount of times she had stared up at the statue of the phoenix with a deep feeling of dread growing in her insides.

She found the statue quick enough and was thankful the corridor was deserted. The weather was fine outside and most of her peers were spending their Saturday lazing around in the sunshine. The girl looked up at the stone phoenix and furrowed her brow slightly.

"Lemon Drops," she spoke up loudly. Nothing happened. "Cherry Fizzies. Bertie Botts Flavoured Beans. Sugar Spiders. Heaven Drops. Chocolate Frogs…"

The girl jumped back in surprise. She hadn't expected to get the password so quickly. Before her eyes the phoenix started rising up revealing a worn staircase. The girl stepped onto it as it lifted her up to the headmaster's study. The wooden door lay open and Leshia peered round it to see Albus Dumbledore looking up expectantly from his desk. For good measure Leshia cleared her throat and knocked on the door.

"Can I please come in sir?" she asked quietly.

"By all means, please do," the old man called back. There seemed to be a twinkle in his eyes that alerted Leshia to the fact that he had known she was coming. Did the man know everything that happened in this school? "How may I be of service to you this fine day Leshia?"

The fifth year girl hovered for a moment before she took the chair Dumbledore was indicating. She felt dwarfed by its enormous proportions.

"I don't think I should be the Gryffindor quidditch captain anymore sir," Leshia stated firmly. The headmaster smiled warmly and leaned back in his chair, lifting his fingers up in front of his chin in a steeple. "It's just we had our first training this morning and now most of the team is in the hospital wing. They all think I'm rubbish and you know what sir, they're right! I can't lead anybody. I can barely lead myself. I'm rubbish. So I think you should give the job to someone else."

The smile on the headmaster's face was growing. Leshia felt threatened by it, as though it knew more about her current situation than she herself did.

"Allow me to tell you a story Leshia," the old man finally spoke. Leshia wrinkled her brow, but nodded nonetheless. "The first lesson I ever taught ended with one of the children being taken to Saint Mungos with serious burns all over their body. We were not doing anything particularly dangerous, but this boy and another young man in the classroom took it upon themselves to duel one another in my lesson. I was powerless to stop them. They ignored me as though I were just part of the furniture. The whole class descended into chaos and I went to my then headmaster to hand in my resignation. I am very glad to say he turned it down quite emphatically."

"But something really terrible could have happened Professor. What happened to the boy?" Leshia asked. Dumbledore chuckled quietly to himself.

"The boy was back in school within a few hours. In their next lesson with me I publically denounced what they had done and sentenced them both to a term's Saturday detentions. By showing strength I reclaimed the respect of the class and that is why I am still here today. If my headmaster had accepted my resignation and allowed me to run away, I never would have learnt from my mistake would I?"

Leshia sighed and hung her head. She knew where this was going. Of course Dumbledore was never going to accept her own resignation as captain. The man was incapable of letting the pupils in hi scare fail if he could do anything to help them.

"But sir, I'm not like you. I'm not a good leader. Things will only get worse," the girl uttered quietly, her head hanging.

"Leshia," the headmaster spoke firmly, lifting the girl's eyes to meet his with the power in his voice. "Whether you like it or not, the student body at this school already look to you as one of their great leaders. They will turn to you to lead them in times of crisis and I am afraid you are going to have to face this fact. If you feel you lack the skills necessary for such a role, then I would suggest you learn them."

"The school don't look to me as a leader," Leshia complained, but her heart wasn't in it. She knew the way the younger pupils viewed her. "Well at least the Slytherins don't, I know that much!"

The twinkle was back in Dumbledore's eyes.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you," he countered cheerily. Leshia rolled her eyes.

"Sir, I don't mean any disrespect, but you're mad if you think the Slytherins look up to me. I know at least a dozen that would happily see me dead," the fifth year objected passionately. Dumbledore leaned back and started laughing merrily. His mirth brought a smile to Leshia's face, which she fought to conceal.

"I would very much like to be there the day you realise you are wrong on this point young Leshia," the old wizard chortled. "Now then, if I were you, I would start devising a way to take control of your team. You are more than capable of doing so. I refuse your request for a replacement captain to be found."

Leshia sighed heavily, but a wry smile was creeping onto her face. The headmaster had won. What had she been expecting?

"Fine sir, but if one of them ends up dead, I'm telling you now, it's not my fault. I warned you!"

With this the girl nodded in thanks to the elderly man and turned to leave his study. At the door she stopped and looked to see that the great Albus Dumbledore had returned to his work as though she had never interrupted him.

On her way back down the stairs Leshia felt a renewed confidence. She was going to have to find a way to sort the male egos out in her team and work better at planning exercises that didn't end up with several key players bashing into each other at great speeds. First though, she needed to stamp her authority on the players while their minds could still be changed. Thankfully, they were all still in the hospital wing being treated for their various ailments. One by one Leshia gathered them all round the foot of Jaime's bed. The young chaser was still out cold, but Leshia felt better knowing the girl was at least part of the meeting. Not that she would remember any of it of course.

The members of the team were still eyeing their captain with nothing short of mutiny. Leshia glared them all down, until one by one they looked to their feet. There was nothing quite so menacing as a Malfoy glare.

"Today was a disaster," the girl announced firmly. "A complete and utter disaster. I apologise for the training exercises that nearly got some of you killed. I've learnt some important lessons on that front and I'll plan the drills better next time, you have my word. Owen and Rodeo." The two young men looked up at the sound of their names. "I still can't quite believe how despicably you both behaved. You're going to have to learn to work together, or I am dropping you both from the team. This isn't a macho 'who's the biggest' tournament, this is quidditch! And it means everything to me. I won't have our chance at the record jeopardised by the pair of you. So sort it out."

A small silence filled the room while Leshia continued to glare firmly at the duelling boys. Both of them had the good grace to look ashamed of themselves.

"Sorry Leesh, it won't happen again," Rodeo uttered quietly. At his side Owen nodded.

"Yeah, it won't happen again."

The captain of the squad nodded firmly.

"It had better not. Now as for the rest of you, well done for keeping your heads when everything was going mad. I'm happy to say at least you lot seemed to be thinking straight. Even if the three of us weren't."

As though the speech had erased the awkward memories, suddenly the mutinous glares were gone and back were the friendly expressions of her teammates.

"Right then, has anyone got anything they'd like to add?" Leshia asked looking to each of her friends questioningly. They shook their heads. "Is everyone okay with trying again tomorrow afternoon?"

Thankfully no one objected and as they made their way back to Gryffindor tower to change Leshia felt the warm buzz of success squirming through her belly. Yes, the training session had been the most appalling pile of rubbish the girl had ever seen, but she had made up for it with firmness. One of these days, Leshia thought privately, she was going to have to thank Albus Dumbledore for the amount of times his good advice had come through for her.

Gryffindor tower was deserted allowing the team to easily head for their dormitories. Leshia felt she needed a lie down after the morning she'd had, but upon entering the dormitory, she realised this was not what she was going to receive.

"There you are!" Rachel exclaimed dramatically the moment the blonde girl walked into the room. Leshia darted back from her best friend, who was barrelling over to her.

"What is it? What have I done?" she asked hurriedly.

"Listen to this one," Rachel scoffed and she looked over her shoulder to where Katie was doing her homework on her bed. "What have you done? You've only bloody gone and saved my life, that's what you've done."

Leshia stopped darting away from Rachel and found herself dragged into a bear hug, a deep frown set into her forehead.

"What are you talking about?" she finally demanded and pushed Rachel away. The flame-haired girl was grinning ecstatically.

"Oh don't be like that Leesh, I knew you would deny it. Thing is, I saw you mate! There's no denying it, you saved my life!"

"How exactly? And when?" Leshia demanded.

"Earlier, in the entrance hall. You know, with the chandelier?" Rachel exclaimed dramatically. Leshia's face contorted into complete bewilderment. What was her friend going on about? "Ugh! Do I have to spell it out for you? Earlier, when I was walking in the entrance hall I looked up and there's this great big chandelier coming towards me from the heavens. Everyone was screaming and I thought I was done for, but then next thing I know someone's levitated it away."

"And you think that someone was me?" Leshia asked incredulously.

"I _know_ it was you. I bloody well saw you Leesh, there's no point in denying it. I knew you would. You're so weird sometimes. Why can't you just take my everlasting gratitude and be done with it?" Rachel countered happily.

"Rach, I was at quidditch practice this morning. It couldn't have been me," Leshia complained.

"Well then you must have an exact double walking round the castle doing good deeds then, because I wasn't the only one who saw you."

"Rach," Katie now called out amusedly. "If Leshia wants to pretend it never happened then let her, now come and help me with this. This is _your_ homework after all."

"But it didn't happen," Leshia tried helplessly earning herself a beaming smile from Rachel.

"Sure sure Leesh, it didn't happen. You're too much you know that?"

As Rachel ambled back over to Katie's bed Leshia sat down on her own, her expression bewildered. What on earth was going on? Surely Rachel must have been mistaken? The trauma of having a chandelier nearly fall on her head must have made her start seeing things.

With a deep feeling of unease Leshia went to have a shower and change out of her uniform. By the time she got back to the others had finished their homework and wanted to go and get some lunch. As they went Leshia told them all about the horrendous morning she'd had. Rachel's knowing expression started to irritate the blonde girl and shortly after lunch she excused herself to go and do some quidditch research in the library. She needed to plan her next training session far more carefully and thankfully this offered enough of a distraction for the rest of the afternoon.

Come evening time and Leshia found herself walking into her parents' chambers. Hermione was in the kitchen cooking up a storm while Draco was feeding Evie her own dinner. After a round of greetings the oldest child in the family sat down at the table.

"How has your day been darling?" Hermione asked, her back turned on the others while she stirred a delicious smelling saucepan. Leshia realised her parents probably already knew how her day had been, but she decided to tell them anyway.

"Well it started off terribly. Over half my squad ended up in the hospital wing and Owen and Rodeo nearly succeeded in killing each other," the girl sighed. Hermione turned around with a sympathetic expression.

"Yes we heard about that," she exclaimed sympathetically.

"Then Professor Dumbledore wouldn't let me quit as quidditch captain and he told me to show strength so that's what I did. I went and told Rodeo and Owen off for being pillocks and then apologised to the team for being rubbish. I think everything's going to be okay now. I've just spent the whole afternoon planning tons of quidditch sessions, so I'm going to be better prepared this time."

"And in between all this excitement you managed to save Rachel's life," Draco spoke up at last. Leshia frowned heavily and stared at her father.

"What?"

"Don't look so surprised," her father chuckled. "Nothing stays secret for very long around here."

"I didn't…" the girl trailed off. What more could she say?

"It was so lucky you were there at the time," Hermione added. "And I had just seen you. Just think, if I hadn't have been in such a hurry and we'd have stopped to talk then poor Rachel might be… oh it just doesn't bear thinking about does it?"

"You saw me?" Leshia's voice seemed strained. A part of her felt terrified that she was losing her mind, yet the other part of her felt incredibly indignant that even her parents were in on the joke.

"Yes darling," Hermione laughed. "Don't you remember? We met on the stairs? I asked you why you were in our pyjamas…" The mother trailed off and frowned at her daughter. Leshia seemed quite alarmed. Draco too turned to stare at the girl.

"Are you feeling alright Leesh?" he asked worriedly. The girl's eyes darted onto her father and then back at her mother.

"Yeah," she lied convincingly. "Yeah, absolutely fine. To be honest I think it's been such a stressful day that I must have blocked that bit out."

Draco grinned and got back to feeding an impatient Evie while Hermione walked over and smoothed Leshia's wild curls down.

"Well don't worry, you can stop being a hero for a few hours. I've made your favourite." Leshia sat up interestedly.

"You've made chicken tikka?" she asked happily. Hermione laughed aloud and shook her head.

"Chicken tikka?" the mother repeated. "Since when has that been your favourite?"

"Since like, ages ago. I thought you knew that," Leshia complained, though a grin was pulling at her face.

"You know, it would be a lot easier to please you if you didn't change your mind every ten minutes about what your favourite meal is," Hermione chuckled and she shook her head fondly. "So no, there is no chicken tikka I'm afraid. I'm making my special lasagne, the one that was your favourite three weeks ago."

"Oh well, that's still really good, thanks mum," Leshia exclaimed happily. Across the table her father was smiling and shaking his head.

"Still pretty good," he uttered amusedly under his breath. "Evie don't go taking any lessons from this one in matters of tact. You'll be a lost cause if you do."

"Hey! I happen to be very tactful I'll have you know," Leshia objected. "You should see Rachel. She's got no concept of the word."

"Funny you should say that…" Draco began, his face the pure personification of mischief. Hermione could see that she needed to intervene before her husband pushed their teenaged daughter too far. She had a habit of suddenly snapping. Hermione realised this had probably come from her; she'd been just the same in her youth.

"Right then Leshia, show me that essay then," she said loudly, interrupting the playful argument that was about to begin. Leshia, suddenly remembering why she was here, reached into her satchel and pulled out the scrap of parchment she had written the essay title on, along with the notes she had collected so far. Hermione took the paper from her and read, her brow furrowing more with each word. Finally she got to the end and dropped the parchment in defeat.

"Well," she spoke brightly; heeding the warning look Draco was giving her. "That's a _little _harder than I imagined, but I'm sure with everybody's help we'll get through it."

"What do you mean everybody's help?" Leshia asked confusedly. Hermione sighed and looked back at the title.

"Darling I know the Anesh family of runes quite well, but the Hakeh runes are less well known to me. There are also ten major variants with hundreds of dialects. This is going to take us a long time to figure out, even with all my expertise. If we can get everyone in your class to help and if I call some favours in from my colleagues then we might just pull it off in time, but I will need to see everyone in the group," Hermione explained rationally. At her side Draco snorted derisively.

"This is madness," he complained. "Why not just go to Albus with the essay title and explain to him that this is far too difficult for a group of fifth years to complete. You needn't involve Silas directly."

"That's not the point dad," Leshia countered. "I want to beat him. I want to write an amazing essay and shove it in his face."

"Exactly the response I would expect from our fifteen-year-old daughter Hermione," Draco continued, indicating the girl with his hand. "But not what I would expect from a rational grown woman. Why involve the children in this? Just go to Albus directly."

"Leshia's right Draco," Hermione protested. "Silas will never learn, but if the class can do well at this essay and if they complete a few more over the course of the year, then they will more than satisfy the requirements for their OWLs and I can inform Albus to give them all Os if Silas tries to give them anything else."

Draco chuckled and shook his head.

"You're going to get too involved and then he'll find out. You mark my words."

"And so what if he finds out?" Hermione replied haughtily. "I'm not doing anything wrong. The muggle educational world is full of private tutors. That's all I'll be doing."

"If you say so," Draco laughed and he turned back to Evie once more, who was looking very impatient to have had her dinner disrupted for so long.

"Thanks mum!" Leshia crowed and she hugged her mother tightly. They arranged to meet the following morning after breakfast, in which Leshia would inform her classmates about the secret homework group she was setting up with the help of her expert mother. Any other group of pupils would laugh at the idea, but Leshia knew this particular group of swots as she liked to think of them would jump at the chance.

"Oh by the way Leshia," Hermione suddenly exclaimed before she rushed out of the kitchen and into the little room that doubled as a library. Leshia frowned at Draco, who merely shrugged his shoulders. Within moments Hermione was back holding a leather chain in her fingers. Leshia inhaled sharply as she remembered the pendant she had loaned her mother. "I've had a really good look at all my rune dictionaries and I just can't seem to find anything similar to this one. It looks made up to me, but then again, it might be a language we have never come across before."

The girl reached out to take back the pendant. The moment her fingers closed around the smooth stone she felt strange sparks flying up her fingers and into her wrist. With a grateful smile to her mother the girl pulled the leather chain over her head. Without a word to her parents she tucked the stone back under the top and turned back on her notes to put them away.

She had just shut her satchel once more when Hermione, who had gone to take something out of the oven, leapt backwards clutching at her forehead. Draco was on his feet within seconds, trying to pull Hermione's hands away from her forehead.

"What's happened?" he asked soothingly, but his wife was staring at their eldest daughter with a peculiar expression. Leshia shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"How did you know Leshia?" Hermione finally asked. Draco looked at their daughter too and raised his eyebrows, hoping someone would shed light on what had just happened. Leshia however, was as clueless as he was and shook her head quickly.

"I'm not sure. What's happened?" she finally replied. Hermione shook her head in disbelief and pulled her hands away from her face to reveal a painful burn mark straight across the middle of her forehead. Leshia winced, it looked very painful.

"Let me," Draco said as he lifted his wand. Hermione smiled and shook her head.

"Don't worry darling, I'll leave it to heal naturally for a few days and then I'll fix it," she explained. Before she turned back on the open oven she cast Leshia one last suspicious look. Draco too was looking at the girl strangely, but when she caught him looking he busied himself with lifting Evie from her highchair.

The rest of the evening was rather marred by the strange turn of events and when Leshia wished her parents goodnight there was a definite tenseness to the farewells. By the time she reached the common room Leshia was convinced she must have fallen asleep earlier in the day and gone sleepwalking. Why else would everyone be convinced they had spotted her around the school? And why else would she have been in pyjamas? It was quite late and the common room was quite deserted. Leshia made her way up to her dormitory and found her friends changed for bed and sitting on Rachel's four-poster gossiping by the looks of things. Within moments Leshia too had changed and had joined her friends.

It would seem the flourishing relationship between Eliot Wood and Charlie Thomas in the year below was the main topic of conversation. Upon hearing of the match Leshia laughed raucously and rolled around on the bed.

"What is Eliot thinking?" she managed through her hysteria. "Charlie Thomas is such a slimebag!"

The rest of the evening past with yet more insults directed at the unfortunate fourth year boy, but before long the fifth years had all retired into their own four-poster beds for the night. Leshia lay awake under her warm covers for a long time, her slender fingers wrapped around the pendant, her busy mind going over the peculiar events the day had brought. There must be a reasonable explanation for everything, there simply must be!

For a long time Leshia tried desperately to find what it was and slowly she heard the familiar sounds of her sleeping friends wafting into the dormitory. Sleep evaded Leshia though. She kept tossing and turning, a sickness growing in the pit of her stomach.

By midnight it suddenly developed into a sudden urge to regurgitate her dinner. With her hands clamped tightly over her mouth Leshia sprinted out of the room and down to the bathrooms. She only just made it to the toilet where she expulsed the contents of her stomach.

Feeling very shaky the girl hobbled over to a sink and washed her mouth and face. The girl looked up at her pale reflection in the mirror and frowned. She leaned closer inspecting the strange glow she could see. Within seconds she had realised what it was and frantically she scrabbled for the leather chain round her neck. She pulled the pendant over her head and saw that indeed, it was starting to glow brightly. With trembling fingers the girl placed it in the middle of the bathroom and started back stepping towards the door.

In a blinding flash the room filled with light and Leshia collapsed.

X

When Leshia dared to open her eyes she found herself in a draughty stairwell. Somewhere up above the rhythmic thuds of a dance class were falling in time with a tinny pop song Leshia had never heard before. The girl looked down at her pyjama-clad appearance and frowned heavily. What had just happened? Where was she? The pendant, it had been glowing…and now she was here. Had she found a peculiar magical transportation device? What was the point in that? The stairwell clearly belonged in Hogwarts, Leshia recognised it vaguely, but why had she been transported here of all places?

A little shower of dust rained down on the girl from above and she sneezed. The thuds from above had become far more vigorous as the song was reaching its climax. Quickly Leshia started descending the stairs to get away from the dancers. Why were they rehearsing at midnight anyway? Funny, there was a lot of sound around for midnight. Pupils' voices were wafting up from the entrance hall down below. Where were the patrolling teachers?

Leshia froze. Slowly she turned and stared at the window she had just rushed past. Her jaw dropped.

"Impossible," she whispered.

The sunlight was streaming in.

"Leshia!"

The teenager spun round to see her mother bustling up the stairs in a hurry. The girl stared at her for a long time eliciting a fond laugh from her mother.

"What are you doing here in your pyjamas? Aren't you going to quidditch darling?" Hermione called out when she was a little closer. Leshia swallowed hard at her dry throat and looked down at her clothes.

"Uh," she garbled. Slowly things were slotting into place, but her conscious mind was desperately trying to deny it. "I lost a bet."

"Well you'd better go and change darling. You don't want to be late for your first practice do you?"

By now Hermione had caught up with her peculiarly dressed daughter on the stairs. Leshia got a good look at her and frowned.

"Where did your burn go?" she asked distantly. "Did dad convince you to get rid of it in the end?"

Hermione adopted a perplexed expression and she shook her head.

"What are you talking about you silly girl?" she laughed. "Anyway, I must dash. Madam Hooch wanted my help taking the dance class and I am frightfully later. I completely forgot!"

"Okay," Leshia mumbled and she watched as her mother ran up the remaining stairs. Feeling entirely deflated the girl dropped backwards into the window, using the windowsill to prop herself up.

"I can't be," she whispered to herself. Realising she was shaking from head to toe Leshia reached out and hugged her arms round herself. "There's just no way I'm…"

Up above the plaster was starting to trickle into a steadier waterfall of dust and paint. Leshia looked at it in confusion, her frazzled mind finding the waterfall that had suddenly developed above the entrance hall a bit much to deal with right now. She glanced up and saw the great chandelier swaying precariously from the ceiling. In the attic above the dancers were whirring themselves into a frenzy.

In a moment of lucidity everything snapped into place. Thanking her lucky stars that she slept with her wand tucked into her pyjama bottoms Leshia leapt to her feet just as the beautiful chandelier started falling. Down below the screams of the pupils unfortunate enough to be in the great hall wafted up. Leshia ripped her wand out and screamed, "_Wingardium leviosa_!"

The chandelier's descent became instantly less rapid and Leshia was able to levitate it gently to the ground. The pupils down below stared up and several started applauding. Leshia met the eyes of her best friend stood in the middle of the entrance hall before she fell backwards trembling. She struggled at her throat, trying to help the air in. She couldn't breath.

"There's just no way," she gasped. The sound of footsteps wafted up the stairs, but before they could come across her a bright light filled the stairwell. Leshia shut her eyes tightly. After several moments of frantic panting the girl dared to open them again. She was back in the bathroom, collapsed against the door.

The pendant lay in the middle of the bathroom, normal once more.

XXXX

End of Part III


	4. Part Four

**Generations: Waves of Time**

**Part IV**

The sounds of panting and a leaking tap were the only noises to interrupt the eerie silence of the bathroom. Lying collapsed by the door Leshia lay unmoving, watching the pendant with impossibly wide eyes. She must have imagined it. It wasn't possible! Surely a pendant didn't harness the power to transport someone back in time?

"Agh, shut up, shut up, shut up!" the girl exclaimed loudly before she rolled onto her side and pushed herself to her feet. She threw her hands over her head, trying to force out the thoughts that were whirring through her mind. "No! I did not just travel back in time. It's impossible!"

But how else could she explain the events of that day? How had Rachel seen her when she had been out on the quidditch pitch? How had Hermione run into her, in her pyjamas of all things, when she should have been outside at the time? She had told her mother about the burn hours before it happened, that explained Hermione's astonished and fearful expression when the event actually took place. There were no other explanations. Leshia had somehow travelled back in time.

The girl's grey eyes slid unwillingly onto the pendant and she crouched down beside it. With trembling fingers she reached out and touched the smooth stone. It was positively radiating heat. Fighting the urge to withdraw her hand and run, Leshia picked the pendant up and slid the leather chain around her neck. Whatever its powers, she felt she needed to keep it. There was something very profound urging her to look after it.

Shivering slightly Leshia slowly made her way back up to her dormitory. Her friends were all still asleep as could be heard by their telltale snores and breathing patterns. The blonde girl stood shivering in the dark for a few minutes. There was nothing for it, she needed to tell someone, anyone!

"Rachel," she hissed, running over to her best friend's bed and poking her head through the curtains. The warmth inside the curtains was far nicer than the draughtiness in the rest of the dormitory, so Leshia clambered in. She shook Rachel's shoulder firmly.

"Rachel!" she repeated, louder this time.

"Bug'r off," the sleeping girl grumbled through her slumber. "S'not time to get up."

"No Rach, but I need to tell you something. Please wake up, please." Somehow Rachel must have perceived Leshia's desperation through her stupor, because moments later she opened her eyes appearing fully awake.

"Leesh? Is everything okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I don't know what I've just seen," Leshia replied panic-struck before she started twisting her fingers round one another frantically. Rachel reached out to stop her, concern filling her tired face.

"What's going on?"

Seconds later and Katie's face had poked through the curtains on the other side of the bed. She too seemed entirely awake for one who had been sleeping only moments before. Her friends' panicked voices had lured her from her bed easily enough.

"It's Leshia, she's gone mental or something," Rachel explained worriedly. Katie quickly climbed onto the bed while Leshia glared at the redhead girl.

"I have not gone mental," the blonde girl complained. "At least, I hope I haven't."

"Leshia tell us, what's going on?" Katie asked firmly. Leshia looked from one concerned face to the next before she sighed exasperatedly. With a firm tug, she pulled the pendant out from under her pyjamas and held it up to her friends.

"Just now I was lying in bed feeling really sick," she told them. "I suddenly got this urge to throw up, so I ran downstairs to the bathrooms. When I was there I noticed this thing glowing really brightly. It freaked me out as you'd imagine, so I took it off and put it in the middle of the room. It let off the brightest flash you've ever seen and the next thing you know I'm in a stairwell above the entrance hall. I went back. Do you understand? I went back to this morning! You know, when the chandelier fell. The reason I didn't know what you were going on about earlier Rach is because I hadn't been there yet. I wasn't there when that chandelier fell the first time, but I was there when it happened again…"

Leshia trailed off and looked forlornly at the confused expressions on her friends' faces. During her story of what had happened they had gradually moved through the motions from concerned to confused and finally mildly irritated.

"Don't look at me like that," Leshia complained. "I'm not making it up."

"No, but you have gone absolutely stark raving bonkers," Rachel complained. "You had a nightmare Leesh, that's all."

"No I didn't!" Leshia countered fiercely. Across the room an angry 'shhhh' wafted out from behind Ashley's curtains. Leshia winced guiltily, before carrying on in a whisper. "I'm not imagining things and I didn't have a nightmare. It really happened. This pendant dragged me back in time. Why won't you believe me?"

Rachel and Katie glanced to one another before they simultaneously shrugged their shoulders.

"Because your story sounds mad?"

"Rachel," Katie admonished, turning a much more sympathetic expression on their friend. "Look Leesh, it's been a really long day for you. I think you probably did have a nightmare…"

Leshia rolled her eyes angrily and pulled the curtains back. Before she could storm off to her own four-poster she lifted an accusing finger to point angrily in the direction of her best friends.

"I'm not mad, I wasn't dreaming it and I am not making it up," she exclaimed furiously. "This thing takes me back in time and one day, whether it be the last thing I bloody well do, I'll prove it to you."

There was an ominous silence before a shrill cry erupted from across the room, "Would you all just _shut up_!"

Leshia jumped slightly before she turned on heal and shut herself within the confines of her own curtains. Angrily she shuffled down under the covers, pulling them high up over her head to block out the world. Hours later, after fitful tossing and turning she fell asleep muttering to herself.

XXX

Barely a few hours later and Leshia woke to the sound of Rachel excitedly waking Katie up. Before she herself could fall victim to the attack, the blonde girl slunk out of bed and gathered together her shower things. Rachel's surprised utterance when she found Leshia's bed empty brought a small smile to the escapee's face, which she quickly forced away again. She wasn't going to forgive her friends that easily.

"Leesh?" Rachel called out, before her face appeared between the curtains from inside Leshia's four-poster. "You're up early. Wait for me, I'll get my things."

"Actually I'm in a hurry," Leshia countered snootily.

"Oh you're not angry with us because of last night are you?" Rachel asked sadly, her face doing a very good impression of that of a wounded puppy dog.

"_I'm_ still angry with you because of last night," the grumpy voice of Ashley came from behind her curtains.

"Wasn't talking to you Ash," Rachel shouted out happily, before she looked back to Leshia. "Where are you going in such a hurry anyway?"

"Oh you know," Leshia shrugged. "Got stuff to do."

Quite suddenly the blonde found herself flung forward, propelled by a very soft weapon. She spun around to see Katie hovering behind her, a cushion in her hands. Before Leshia could arm herself she found herself under attack once more, this time, from the other side. Rachel too it would seem had found a soft weapon.

"Guys," Leshia warned as she backed into the middle of the room. Katie and Rachel mercilessly followed, their cushions held aloft. "This isn't funny!"

"I don't know," Rachel countered. "I think it's hilarious. Don't you Katie?"

And so the attack began. Leshia found herself bursting into hysterical giggles despite her anger, which in all fairness seemed to be ebbing away with every strike. By the time she had found her own cushion to protect herself with, only her good humour remained. Now all three girls were armed the fight turned into a messy opportunistic foray, one which left them all lying on Leshia's bed laughing hysterically.

"Come on," Leshia announced and she sat up, dumping her cushion back at the top of her bed. "We've got stuff to do."

"What stuff? It's a Sunday morning!" Rachel complained. She looked like she wanted to stay there happily chuckling to herself all day.

"Katie, when I explain what my mum said last night do you promise not to get too excited?" the blonde girl warned as she looked around for her shower things once more. Her more studious friend sat up quickly and nodded.

"I promise. What did she say?"

"Well, she told me she wants to get the whole class together and if we all work on separate parts of the assignment then we might get it all done in time. She was pretty surprised actually at how hard it was," Leshia explained.

"Well why can't she go and tell Professor Dumbledore and get us off the hook?" Rachel complained. A morning cooped up with Leshia's mother doing her runes homework had not been the Sunday morning she had envisaged.

"She wants to win I think."

"Win at what? It's not a bloody competition."

But Rachel's objections went unheeded as both Leshia and Katie headed down to the shower queue leaving their lazier friend to rush to catch up with them. Luckily there wasn't much of a queue and the three fifth year girls were soon on their way down to breakfast. On their way, Leshia and Rachel questioned Katie on the fact that she had been so excited to use the prefects' bathroom, but as of yet hadn't seemed to take advantage of it. The bespectacled girl kept very quiet and instead busied herself with ignoring her friends and drawing up a plan to let everyone in their Ancient Runes class know about the extra homework club they had been invited to.

By the time they reached the great hall Katie told the other two which pupils they needed to go and inform. Leshia was highly bemused with the list she had been given.

"No way Katie, there is no way I am going to be the one to tell the snakes," the blonde girl exclaimed fiercely.

"Oh come on Leesh, there aren't many of them," Katie grumbled. In truth she had given Leshia the Slytherins in revenge for her jeering about the prefects' bathroom. Rachel had only started because Leshia had brought it up.

"Yeah, you've only got to tell three people. I've got five. Why do so many people in Hufflepuff do Ancient Runes? I thought they were all thick over there," Rachel piped up.

"I don't mind telling the Hufflepuffs," Leshia quickly offered. "And look, they're all spread out along the table too, it'll take you ages to talk to all of them."

"How stupid do you think I am?" the redhead laughed. "Go on, go tell your snakes and I'll go and have a chat with those lovely Hufflepuffs. What are we telling them by the way?"

"My mum said the room of requirement at ten thirty."

"What and give away our secret?" Rachel complained.

"We can make sure the door is open before they get there. Now come on, let's go and get it over with."

Leshia felt her feet turn to lead as she walked across the great hall towards the Slytherin table. It was in completely the other direction to where she normally sat and as such many people were turning to stare at her, not least the entire Slytherin contingent. When it became clear the enigmatic girl was heading over to the snake's house most people in the room had turned to have a look hoping for a good show. Leshia ignored their gazes and held her head up high. She was very thankful that Julius Black was sat near Tamara Beckwaith and Tatiana Zambini, the other two Slytherin members of the runes class. Leshia headed straight for them, feeling the colour rising in her cheeks. She could positively feel the hatred radiating off some of the members of this house, particularly that tall and moody looking boy sat a few seats away from Julius. Yes, Damian Allseyer was having a hard time containing himself at the sight of his enemy approaching.

Before the furious young man could voice his objections though, Leshia crouched down between Tamara and Tatiana, blocking her from view. The two girls were staring at her in polite bewilderment, which made Leshia feel slightly better. At least they weren't glowering at her cruelly like many other people from their year group. Across the table Julius Black had looked up and was watching the spectacle before himself with mild amusement.

"I'm here about our runes homework," Leshia explained quickly. Instantly her three Slytherin classmates looked infinitely less surprised and distinctly more interested. "I showed the essay title to my mum last night and she was really shocked that Tripper's asked us to do something so difficult. So she had an idea. She wants us all to meet at ten-thirty to see if she can help us figure out some way of getting all the work done. You know, if we all work together that is. Are you lot in?"

Finally the girl looked up to meet Julius Black's eye. Gone was the amused expression and instead he was nodding firmly, as too were the girls Leshia had wedged herself between.

"That sounds really good," Tamara spoke up. "Thanks Leshia, you know, for including us."

"Of course," the blonde haired girl exclaimed in surprise. "Why wouldn't I? So we're going to meet by the tapestry of Saint Barnabas the Barmy. Do you know where that is? It's just down the corridor from Gryffindor tower." The three Slytherins nodded. "Great, I'll see you there then. Oh and don't be late, because we're not going to be holding the tutorial there, it's just where we're meeting."

XXX

Hermione beamed inwardly as she looked at the expectant faces of her once favourite class. It felt so good to sit in front of a class of pupils once more, even if they were sat on cushions in the room of requirement instead of behind desks in a classroom. For some reason when Leshia and her friends opened the secret room it had provided a very lavishly decorated den. Hermione would have opted for a much more studious setting, possibly with a whole array of runes books, but the girls had arrived first and this is what she had to work with.

The conscientious runes pupils had all been on time and it was Hermione who was last to arrive. Leshia had tutted and shaken her head, but the others had been delighted to see their former teacher, particularly as she was going to be helping them on their ferociously difficult assignment. So now they sat, an assortment of notes and textbooks in the centre of the room, all eyes trained on Hermione as though she might hold the magic cure to all their problems.

"Right," she spoke up firmly. "I'm not going to lie to you, this is going to take us all a lot of hard work to solve. There is absolutely no way any of you could have undertaken this on your own. So I'm very glad you have all agreed to work together. Now if I remember rightly, there is a very good spread of skills in this class. You're all obviously very bright and able with runes, but each of you has a particular area you are stronger in. If we can utilise everyone's different strengths then we might just get this done."

Across the room Leshia was smiling and shaking her head again. Why was it that as soon as Hermione came before a group of students she couldn't help herself, she just turned into a natural teacher? It was a crying shame for the Ancient Runes pupils at Hogwarts that Evie had come along and deprived them of the best teacher they could ever have had.

"Um, Hermione?"

Everyone glanced round to see Rachel had half raised her hand into the air, her expression a little embarrassed.

"Yes Rachel? Is everything okay?" the former teacher responded quickly.

"Yeah everything's great. It's just uh…you know how you're amazing with runes and all that. Well couldn't you just sort of, you know, tell us the answers?"

To the pupils' complete surprise Hermione started laughing loudly. So loudly in fact, that she placed her hands on her stomach to contain herself. Leshia grimaced a little embarrassedly.

"Mum," she complained through slightly gritted teeth. "Isn't that a good point?"

"Oh Rachel," Hermione chuckled, finally calming down. "You sound just like Leshia. I'm not superwoman! I can't do everything. There are over five hundred known rune families in existence, each one home to dozens of variants and thousands of dialects. It is absolutely impossible for one person to know them all. Yes, you get better and quicker at deciphering them once you've studied them for a long time, but even then nothing happens overnight. Added to this is the fact that Professor Tripper has asked you to compare two very large and very different families. Even if I spent every waking hour working on this, it would still take me weeks if I were doing so on my own."

Several faces, which had seemed so hopeful at the start of this session, suddenly fell. Hermione saw and quickly carried on reassuringly, "Don't worry. We _will _get it done. Gathered in this room are some of the brightest young minds in Hogwarts. It'll all be fine. Now then, who is going to be doing what?"

The pupils leaned forward interestedly as Hermione picked up a neatly scripted piece of parchment. While they discussed the different areas of the assignment Leshia began to get a little concerned about the way her mother was avoiding her eye. In fact, she seemed to be avoiding looking at her part of the circle altogether. Why might that be?

It wasn't long before she found out. As Hermione started doling out the jobs to various members of the group Leshia became aware that she hadn't been mentioned yet. In fact, by the time Hermione had got to the bottom of the list, there were only two people left without a job. Leshia's face became stony as she looked across the circle to the dichotomous eyes of Julius Black. He too seemed to have come to the same conclusion and was looking a little put out.

"And that leaves us with you two," Hermione spoke with forced brightness. Her smile wavered slightly when the pair of teenagers glared at her. "I thought you two could work on the translatory index. You're both so very good at deciphering runes and you're both very creative and inventive when it comes to this sort of thing. So I was hoping, if you wouldn't mind, it would do us all a favour, that you two could possibly work together on this part of the assignment."

For a moment the general chatter in the room died down as other youngsters, who had already got to work, stopped to turn and watch the showdown. Leshia meanwhile, was getting to her feet and walking over to her mother, her expression slightly mutinous. When she reached the seated woman almost everyone in the room had turned to look.

"Not at all," Leshia finally spoke, her voice too betraying a forced cheeriness. "We don't mind, do we Black… I mean, Julius. We don't mind right?"

Just before Leshia watched Julius Black shake his head and claim he didn't have any objections she could have sworn she heard him sigh ever so slightly. And even though she wanted to scream in his face that she had no desire to work with him either, she kept her temper and reached out for the notes Hermione was passing to her. As Julius climbed to his feet the pair eyed one another suspiciously, before they went to find an unoccupied corner of the room to start their work.

Hermione watched them go with a proud smile growing on her face. Yes, it wasn't an ideal situation for Leshia and she was sure she would be told off quite severely the next time her daughter ran into her, but for now, everything was going swimmingly. She would help these teenagers pass their Ancient Runes OWL, even if she had to teach them herself!

That afternoon Leshia's second ever quidditch practice went perfectly. The girl had so much pent up aggression that she was easily able to display the strength a captain needed to control and lead her team. Her exercises worked perfectly this time and as the training came to a close, no one needed to visit the hospital wing. Feeling hugely better after her less than perfect morning spent working with Julius Black, Leshia was back to her happy self by time they were packing up the equipment. She even managed to force Owen and Rodeo to take the kit back to the equipment store as punishment for their rowdy behaviour at the last training, which left Leshia to amble in with a smile on her face. That would see to it that they didn't act like such brainless idiots again.

The cheerful end to the weekend set Leshia up for a positive second week back at school, which remarkably ran into a third week of very few difficulties for the usually troublesome girl. Quidditch practices were going well and despite having to spend a large amount of time working with Julius Black on the runes assignment Leshia felt the first few weeks of term had gone remarkably well. Rachel and Katie often coincided their study sessions with their counterparts at the same time that Leshia arranged to meet with Julius in the library to stave off any unpleasantries that might arise. This had worked quite well and would have continued to do so had Leshia and Julius not been given the most difficult task of the assignment, requiring them to work longer than the others. On the Saturday before the deadline Leshia and Julius had begrudgingly decided to arrange their final session in the library to finish their part of the assignment. Katie and Rachel had tried to get their partners to agree to the same, but they were finished and no amount of suggesting that their work might be flawed and needed to be checked could get them another meeting in the library. The two boys they had been paired with were ridiculously studious it was true, but all this extra time that they had been forced to dedicate to their runes homework had left very little time for other subjects. They had told Rachel and Katie quite bluntly that yes, they would be in the library on Saturday, but that runes would be the last thing on their minds.

Katie still insisted on joining Leshia, but Rachel rightly pointed out that Julius Black would soon cotton on that they thought Leshia required a chaperone and that this wouldn't do anyone any good. So it was with a heavy heart that Katie led Leshia to the library doors Saturday afternoon. Leshia was in a good mood as she had just captained a very successful quidditch practice that had seen her team pulling together in a way she hadn't seen before. She was quite amused by Katie's protectiveness and managed to bite her tongue when Katie started giving her suggestions on how to calm herself down if she started to feel wound up by her Slytherin nemesis. Rachel showed no such tact and burst into reams of laughter at the doors before dragging Katie away.

"Enjoy your studies Leesh," the redhead called over her shoulder cheerfully as they left. Leshia grinned and shook her head fondly before she pushed into the library doors. Instantly the calm studious air of the place washed over her and almost instinctively the smile fell from her face. She was a little early and so after dropping her work down on one of the octagonal tables, she ambled into the aisles of musty old books. With a slight spring to her step Leshia walked straight past the dusty old tomes about Ancient Runes and instead headed for a section she had spent a surprising amount of time lingering in recently.

Once she reached the shelf she sought the girl let her eyes travel over the titles: _Time Travel: Unlocking the Mysteries, How to Bend Time, Wish You Could Go Back and Do It All Again?_ and her personal favourite _Time: A Beginners Guide!_ She had flicked through each of these books over the last few weeks, looking for any clue as to the strange experience she had encountered that peculiar night. She hadn't dared mention it to her friends again and instead sought answers in Hogwarts' rather meagre supply of books relating to the concept of time travel. So far, she hadn't found anything that even remotely matched the pendant or what she experienced. The girl was starting to doubt it had even happened. Perhaps Katie and Rachel were right? Maybe she was losing it.

After pulling a few books off the shelf that Leshia hadn't explored yet she wandered back to her chosen table. It didn't surprise her that Julius Black had arrived while she was gone and was reading a page of notes he had written since their last study session. Upon Leshia's arrival he looked up and nodded courteously, before he looked down again. Leshia sighed and placed the books down on the table. As she sat down she noticed the peculiar boy steal a glance at the spines to read their titles. For a moment his right eyebrow lifted slightly before it quickly assumed its usual position. Leshia knew him well enough by now to guess that he had something to say about her choice of reading material, but that he would save his smugness for another occasion, one that suited him better. Inwardly she scowled.

"I think I solved the problem we were facing with the singular symbols," the boy instead said. Leshia nodded and forced a bright smile onto her face.

"Great," she beamed. "Was it to do with the fifth layer of translation like you thought?"

Julius Black looked up and for a moment her smiled darkly.

"No," he said simply. "I was wrong. It was your idea, the one about the second layer and the polar symbols putting everything out of alignment."

For a moment Leshia chewed the insides of her cheeks to prevent herself from bursting into a gloating outburst before she nodded stiltedly.

"Well I'm glad you figured it out. That means we're done right? We just need to decide how we're going to present everything for the essay."

"I agree."

And so the pair poured over their notes with Julius writing out their findings in his neat uniform scrawl on a fresh sheet of parchment. All the while Leshia's fingers wound their way round the pendant hanging from her neck. She didn't know why it felt so comforting, but somehow the warm stone cried out for her to touch it. When she wasn't in contact with it her fingers itched. Unfortunately, touching the smooth stone seemed to distract Leshia more than she would have liked. Every time she felt the indentation of the peculiar runes her mind drifted back to that awful moment when she had appeared on the stairs above the entrance hall. Sometimes she found herself reliving the entire experience.

"Leshia? Leshia? Malfoy!"

With a start the girl realised she had been daydreaming again and she flicked her cold grey eyes onto Julius' peculiar ones. A small frown adorned her face while he smiled smugly.

"We're nearly done, do you think you can concentrate and read me that last paragraph about the translatory layers again? I don't feel like hanging out in the library all day."

"Neither do I," Leshia complained and she searched the notes in front of her for the paragraph Julius had asked for. The young man was still watching her.

"What is that thing anyway? You can't leave it alone," he finally spoke when Leshia looked up, the required paragraph in hand. She stared at him strangely for a moment and so he indicated the pendant around her neck. "That stone. You keep touching it."

Automatically Leshia's fingers flew back to the warm stone and a thousand lies flew to the tip of her tongue. Lying had always been an almost involuntary skill where Leshia was concerned.

'Why lie though?'she thought moodily.

"I found it on a beach at Ryan Lofting's wedding in the summer if you must know," she explained tetchily. "And I don't see what it's got to do with you so if you could please mind your own business then we might actually get this finished."

Julius Black stared at Leshia for a few moments, before he shrugged his shoulders and nodded.

"Well if you could read that paragraph to me that would be a good start on getting finished," he said simply. Leshia seethed inwardly, but nodded and continued to read. Though it called to her, the girl managed to leave the pendant alone long enough for she and Julius to finish their work. They would be presenting it to the group tomorrow at another session Hermione had arranged for the class.

As soon as Julius announced that he thought they were done Leshia sprang to her feet with her books clutched to her chest. After a curt goodbye she darted over to Miss Pince's desk where she checked the books out and then she was gone. Only once she was in the secluded safety of the corridor did she let her fingers travel back to the pendant around her neck.

"Ruddy Slytherin snake," the girl grumbled and she happily entertained herself with an angry rant aimed squarely at her study partner until she reached the Gryffindor common room.

The following day as Leshia and Julius presented their work to their Runes group under Hermione's supervision the former teacher smiled broadly at the intelligent pair and led a heartfelt round of applause for the two youngsters. They had undoubtedly been given the hardest part of the essay, but despite this they had excelled in equal measure to their peers. Hermione expressed how proud she was of the group and conjured, as though from nowhere, a delicious chocolate cake that she had baked to congratulate them.

As the youngsters munched happily on the delicious cake they copied the essay out into their own words to hand in their own individual assignments and by mid afternoon they had all succeeded. Leshia and Rachel were the last to do so, as they had rather managed to distract each other while the others worked studiously. As such, they were the last to climb to their feet and carefully put their essays away in their satchels. Hermione looked up from a book she had been reading when they did so.

"Ah! Ready at last girls?" she asked them fondly. The pair sniggered and nodded.

"Thanks for all your help Hermione, you really saved our necks," Rachel gushed cheerily.

"I didn't actually do anything Rachel, it was all of you who put in the hard work. Don't forget that," Hermione countered. "Leesh I was wondering if you wanted to come round for a Sunday roast later?"

"I'd love to," Leshia replied happily. "Just give me an hour to destroy Rach at chess and I'll be down."

At her side Rachel burst into laughter. The pair had been threatening one another with a chess battle all afternoon and it had led to some rather amusing 'trash talking' as it were. Hermione smiled after the pair adoringly as they walked out leaving her to gather together the notes the teenagers had left in their wake. She would need all the evidence she could gather to show Albus at the end of the year should that awful Silas Tripper try and deny these youngsters their hard earned Runes OWL.

XXX

Leshia sat cross-legged on the plush rug in front of the hearth laughing hysterically at her baby sister's face. They had been playing the same game for the last half an hour and it merely consisted of little Evie presenting a small toy for Leshia to hide. The resulting perplexed expression on the toddler's face as she tried to find said toy was so entertaining that Leshia could have played the game all evening if Evie wanted to. The latest hidden item, one of Evie's favoured toy rabbits, had been causing the little girl all manner of difficulty. Little did she know that Leshia was actually sitting on the poor animal and that all her efforts to search every item of furniture in the vicinity was going in vein.

"You're not winding that poor child up are you?" Draco's voice wafted out from his study. He had been witness to the first few rounds of this game and knew exactly what Leshia was up to.

"Dad you always think the worst of me," Leshia called back cheerily and she smiled even broader when she heard her father's soft chuckles. Evie by now had come to the conclusion that her favourite bunny rabbit wasn't hiding under one of the settee cushions and she turned her confused little face on her sister. With a frown she toddled forwards and stared with disconcerting concentration into Leshia's eyes, as though she were trying to read the older girl's mind. Leshia's smile dropped and she cocked her head to the side slightly. Surely there was no chance that Draco's natural gifts with legilimancy had passed onto her little sister? Yes, it was true, there had been the occasional time where Leshia herself had seemed to possess the mind reading gift, but there was no way her baby sister could harness the powerful trick. Surely not?

Evie though, moved determinedly towards Leshia until she was stood in front of her. Her right hand was permanently fixed to her little face these days with her thumb popped diligently into her mouth, but after a moment of clear thought, the baby lifted her left hand and reached towards the pendant round her older sister's neck. While the toddler's large dark eyes dropped to the stone Leshia's lips parted in surprise. So Evie could sense it too? This pendant was special and both knew it.

Evie stared at the stone in her pudgy fingers for a few moments before she looked up to Leshia, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Ah?" the baby exclaimed in question. Leshia, who by now had managed to put together a working dictionary of what each of the baby's utterances meant clearly deciphered the noise as "What is this?". Theatrically Leshia added "And why does it feel so bloody weird?" onto the end of Evie's imaginary sentence.

"I don't know what it is Evie," Leshia explained and she freed her sister's hand from the stone and held onto it herself. "I wish I did."

"Dinner's ready!"

Leshia looked up to see that Hermione was lifting a beautifully crisp roast chicken onto the dining room table and the moment between her and Evie was gone. The baby was whisked from the ground and into her high chair by their father, who had come through at the smell of the delicious cooked bird. Leshia climbed to her feet and was at the table a few moments later, her fingers still laced around the pendant and her brow furrowed in thought.

"I can see Evie's been confusing you with her thrilling thoughts on philosophy again," Draco spoke up loudly, forcing his voice through Leshia's daydream. The girl blinked and looked from her little sister's thumb-sucking face to her father's amused grin.

"Huh?" she finally managed.

"Nothing," Draco chuckled. "You just seem a bit confused. Everything all right?"

As Hermione sat down at the head of the table and started doling out delicious roast vegetables onto Draco and Leshia's plates the teenager shrugged.

"I was thinking about time travel actually," the girl spoke up truthfully eliciting a frown from her father.

"Time travel?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yeah, time travel. It's been interesting me a lot lately actually. Do you know if it's possible dad?"

For a moment Draco looked to his wife, who merely shrugged her shoulders and continued to serve the dinner. To her it didn't seem too perplexing to imagine their exceedingly curious intelligent daughter pondering such a concept. But somehow Draco knew better. It was as though he had developed a sixth sense for when Leshia was hiding something and he knew this subject was treading very closely to one of his daughter's many secrets.

"Well it's certainly possible," he finally replied having decided that there was absolutely no possible way that his parting with information on the subject could lead Leshia into trouble. "Have you ever heard of a time turner?"

The teenager wrinkled her brow and shook her head.

"Isn't there some nursery rhyme about something like that? I can't really remember it. What is a time turner?"

"Hermione?" Draco looked to his wife, who was now passing him a plate of delicious food.

"I take it you want me to explain?" she asked warmly.

"Well you did have one once. You're probably the best person to explain it."

"You travelled in time?" Leshia asked incredulously, turning her dubious gaze on her mother. Hermione laughed loudly and shook her head.

"Yes Leshia, _I_ travelled in time. It was in my third year at school. I wanted to take more classes than I had time for and so Minerva came up with a brilliant way for me to make all of my lessons. She gave me a time turner," the proud witch explained. Leshia frowned.

"Yes but what _is_ a time turner?"

"I was about to get onto that you impatient thing," Hermione laughed. "They were invented by a very clever witch in the seventeen hundreds. The magic behind her invention has long been lost and by the end of the twentieth century there were only a few dozen left in existence. The Ministry of Magic had collected every single one, including the one I used after I was done with it. I don't think there are any left in circulation…"

"Mum," Leshia interrupted tentatively and opposite her at the table Draco looked up from his task of helping Evie cut her small portion of dinner into baby-sized chunks, to smile knowingly at his older daughter. "I know that you're a born teacher and all that. And I know you love explaining everything in, you know, a lot of detail and stuff. But I just want to know what it does? And also what it looks like." This last part she added as an afterthought, one that turned Draco's smile into a slightly suspicious frown.

Hermione, far from looking offended at Leshia's insistence that she speed her story up laughed and nodded.

"Sorry darling. Force of habit! A time turner looked like a small hourglass set into a golden pendant that hung from a chain. Whoever was wearing it could use it to travel back in time. Each time you turned the hourglass it sent you back in time by an hour. So if you turned it five times, you travelled back five hours."

"So you had to control it?" Leshia asked and she seemed disappointed.

"Yes that's right."

"And you could only go back a few hours?"

"Well I'm sure you could use it to go back as far as you liked, but mostly people only used them for short bursts. You see, once you were back in time, you had to live through that extra time. There was no jumping backwards and forwards. Once you were back in time you had to wait until you were back in your own time again. So there would be no point in using it to go back hundreds of years."

Leshia's eyes dropped to the table and her shoulders drooped. Hermione glanced to her husband with raised eyebrows, but he merely shrugged. He had no idea what was wrong with the girl.

"Okay, so is there another way to time travel then?" Leshia finally asked and she looked up at her father. "Oh and by the way mum I'm choosing to ignore the fact that you were actually swotty enough to travel back in time every day just so you could fit more lessons in!"

"Not that I know of," Draco replied. "Although why you're asking me I have no idea when you've got your encyclopaedia of a mother sat right next to you."

Leshia grinned and both she and Draco looked to Hermione, who looked as though she were wracking her memory for something.

"There is an old legend," she finally spoke up. "There was once a very old tribe who practiced natural magic who were reputed to have mastered time travel. They came from a very small volcanic island in the Pacific."

"The Pacific?" Leshia interrupted. "Isn't that where Ryan got married?"

"No," Draco replied. "That was an island in the Indian Ocean actually." Leshia stared at him in confusion. "Do you know what, I think I'm going to have to get you a globe for your next birthday. The Pacific Ocean is an incredibly long way from the Indian Ocean so no, it's not where Ryan got married."

"Oh."

Again Leshia's shoulders drooped, before she seemed to lift her own spirits and she snapped her eyes onto Hermione again.

"Can you remember what the tribe was called mum?" Hermione frowned and shook her head.

"Sorry darling. Now come on, the dinner is getting cold. I didn't spend the last three hours slaving away in that kitchen so we could just stare at all this food you know!"

XXX

_Quick-paced breathing filled Leshia's ears in the darkness. She tried to open her eyes, only to realise they were already open. Absolute blackness surrounded her. A clammy breeze brushed past her skin and she spun around on a well-polished floor, searching the darkness for any sign of life._

"_Hello?" she called out. Her voice was lost in the vastness of the blackness. Wherever she was, it was of enormous proportions. Leshia's panting sped up and she walked forwards in the immense emptiness; slowly at first, but soon she was running. Only the sound of her own breathing and her fast footfalls broke the silence of the measureless empty room. _

_Leshia skidded to a halt and stared into the distance. What was that peculiar golden light? It looked like the outline of a doorway. The girl gulped and she started stepping backwards. Why did that doorway fill her with dread? And how on earth was it getting larger when she was fast moving away from it?_

_The golden light was getting brighter, casting large shadows on the well-polished floor. Hundreds of stretched oval shadows littered the black marble and the sight of them instilled more fear in the girl than the doorway had._

"_No!" she cried out angrily. "Stay away from me!"_

_The girl turned and ran as from the darkness dappled reflections cast light on thousands of spherical shapes in the murky darkness. The golden light was growing and in the distance the sound of…_

Leshia sat up in bed gasping for air. Bright sunshine was creeping round the edges of her heavy bed curtains, but by the sounds of her still dormitory, the others were yet to rise. Trembling slightly the blonde girl lowered herself back onto her pillows and stared up at the canopy above her.

That dream. She had had that dream before. She was sure of it. Where was that dark place? And what were those awful shapes that reared out of the blackness?

Feeling uneasy Leshia lifted her fingers to her chest to seek out the comforting warmth of the pendant. As soon as she touched it she recoiled her hand in pain. For the second time in the brief few moments since waking up Leshia sat up straight in bed. The pendant, it was burning. The image of the stone glowing brightly was seared into her mind and as she shut her eyes Leshia prepared for the worst.

She was expecting the bright flash that penetrated even her closed eyelids.

Instantly the girl knew she was no longer in her warm bed. In fact, she seemed to be lying in something rather damp. Gone was her cosy duvet too and instead a cold breeze snaked around her pyjama-clad form. Gone too was the stillness of the dormitory, replaced instead by the far away voices of young people and a strange rustling sound. Were they trees?

There was nothing for it, Leshia was going to have to open her eyes. After inwardly counting to three the girl snapped her eyes open. A canopy of evergreen branches met her gaze. Leshia blinked rapidly, but this did not cause the trees to disappear. Panting, the girl sat up and realised that she had been lying on a bed of cold damp moss. Within seconds she had scrambled to her feet, searching about herself in the trees to get her bearings.

'I'm in the Forbidden Forest.'

The thought fell into Leshia's head like an anchor and the weight of it nearly threw her to the ground once more. So this pendant could transfer her outside of the castle as well? Shivering in her pyjama bottoms and skimpy vest Leshia looked down at herself and frowned angrily.

'Do I always have to be in my bloody pyjamas though?' she thought angrily. 'Because if that's the only time this damn thing works I'm chucking it away!'

Having figured out where she was an uncomfortable thought wormed its way into Leshia's mind. She may have been aware of _where_ she was, but she had no idea yet as to _when_ she was. After glancing around at the unhelpful trees for answers Leshia realised there was nothing else for it. She was going to have to find answers out in the school grounds and simply hope that no one caught sight of her in her pyjamas.

With a stone-cold expression on her face the girl stalked through the dank leaves and moss heading towards the sounds of the far-away youngsters. All the while she pondered why the pendant had brought her to this place and to this point in time, whenever it was. The last time she had travelled to a time where her quick actions had saved her best friend's life, but would she need to do so again?

Leshia froze. She could hear the sounds of a scuffle taking place several yards away. It sounded like a very one sided fight, as there were the sounds of lots of individuals goading each other on, but there came only the grunts and groans of one unlucky victim. Leshia furrowed her brow deeply and felt in the pocket of her pyjama trousers for her trusty wand. As soon as her fingers closed around it she felt reassured.

Stealthily, she crept towards the sounds of the fight, thanking her bare feet and the dank moss for the silent manner in which she was able to approach the scuffle. Through the branches she could just about make out the shapes of several uniform-clad teenagers around her own height and a crumpled tiny figure on the ground. An icy feeling started growing in the pit of her stomach. This seemed all too familiar.

"Look there!" an alarmed cry suddenly sounded. Leshia ducked down behind the branches, but the alarm had not been sounded because the vengeful attackers had caught sight of her. The bullies out there in the trees had seen something else. Something that instilled terror in them.

"Run for it!" a familiar snivelling voice yelped and Leshia watched with narrowed eyes as the Slytherin boys scrambled out of the trees and up the bank of grass into the grounds. She panted in anger, her fingers itching to lift her wand and send a few curses after them to help them on their way, but no, as much as she would like to, she knew she wasn't here to take her revenge on those awful Slytherin rats who had beaten her into a pulp in her second year. So why was she here?

While she relived the unpleasant memory Leshia jumped in fright as a figure stalked through the trees quite near to where she was hiding. Remembering suddenly the last part of the blurry nightmare, the part right before she had passed out in agony all those years ago Leshia suddenly felt her knees give way. As she landed on the moss she got a better view of the gangly hooded figure stalking over the sodden ground towards the small girl lying blooded and awkwardly in the leaves.

Leshia stared at her grandfather's back. How easy it would be to end his life now and ensure that he never caused her family the pain he had managed in her last year at school. How better to protect Evie than to curse him into the darkness in which he belonged?

With trembling fingers Leshia lifted her wand and aimed it at the old man's back. Tears started welling up in her eyes as she forced the hatred from her heart into the tip of her tongue, willing it to say the words she had read so many times. Words that this very man had shouted at her nearly ending her life only a few months ago.

But the words wouldn't come.

Leshia was many things, but a killer? No, she was no killer. She was not like him.

Feeling furious with herself the youngster dropped her wand hand to her side and peered closer through the branches as her grandfather closed in on her younger, incapacitated self. She could hear the hiss escape his voice as he uttered the words that had haunted her second year,

"You don't belong."

"I belong more than you know you old bastard!" Leshia hissed furiously. She had to act quickly to save her past self.

"Hey! Isn't that Leshia?" she called out loudly and she started crashing through the bushes, hidden from her grandfather's view.

"Who's that man?" she called louder, forcing her voice to sound different by assuming an Irish accent. Her ruse worked and Leshia watched as her grandfather retreated quickly from her unconscious form and ran through the trees. She waited several minutes until she was sure he was gone before she crept out from behind the trees.

Her second-year self was a bloody sight. The younger version of Leshia had passed out from the agony of the beating she had received and for a moment the older Leshia felt a deep pang of guilt. What had she put her parents through all those times? And for what purpose? All that pain just so that she could avoid being known as a grass. All that agony just to get her revenge on a snivelling thirteen-year-old boy.

"It's not worth it," the blonde girl sighed and she crouched down at her younger self's side and reached out to touch her blooded hand. "Take it from me. It's not worth it."

There was one part of this story left to complete and with a deep sigh Leshia lifted her wand and pointed it into the sky. After a quickly uttered incantation red sparks flew from the wand tip and out past the treetops. The flare would lure help to the fallen girl's side. She would be saved and nursed back to health, only to allow herself to be put in this exact position again a few weeks later.

'I was so foolish,' Leshia thought sadly as she retreated into the trees to watch as hurried figures crashed through the trees to the fallen girl's side. As the first of them reached her younger self a bright light filled Leshia's vision. She shut her eyes tightly once more and felt the cold forest disappearing and her warm bed reappearing in its stead. By the time she opened her eyes she was back where she had started, staring up at the canopy of her bed. Her clothes felt damp from her trip to the forest and the pendant lay smouldering on top of her vest.

"I'm not going mad," the girl whispered to herself. So she was travelling back in time, travelling to points in her life where she had played a part she hadn't known about at the time. First she had saved Rachel and now she had saved herself in an event that had happened three years ago. How on earth did the pendant do it? And who or what was controlling it?

Feeling altogether overwhelmed Leshia shut her eyes tightly and rolled onto her side, using her pillow to cover her head and block out the light creeping in. While thoughts whirred round her mind, staving off sleep yet preoccupying the girl so much she had no idea about what was going on around her, the rest of the dormitory woke up. Leshia was the last to rise and she only did so when someone wrenched the curtains to her bed open.

"Wakey wakey it's time to…"

Rachel's agonisingly cheery voice stopped mid sentence and Leshia felt something being peeled from her arm. The blonde girl threw the pillow off her head and looked up into her best friend's confused face.

"What the hell is this and why are you covered in them?" the redhead demanded amusedly and she held up a large sodden pine needle. Leshia frowned at the sight of it and looked down at herself to see her trip back in time had left her clothes festooned in debris from the forest floor.

"You honestly wouldn't believe me if I told you," Leshia replied stonily. For a moment Rachel glanced over her shoulder, before she crept inside Leshia's four-poster and drew the curtains.

"Go on, tell me," she urged comfortingly. Leshia sighed and hung her head. She knew little good could come from telling Rachel, as the redhead wasn't likely to believe her, but she needed to tell someone, she needed to say it aloud to prevent the words from bouncing around her mind.

"I went back again," she whispered hurriedly. Rachel frowned deeply and cocked her head to the side.

"Uh?" was all she managed.

"You know what I mean. Remember a few weeks ago when I told you and Katie about what happened to me in the bathroom with this?" Here Leshia lifted the still warm pendant from her chest and showed Rachel the offending item. "I went back that night and I did it again this morning. I went back in time Rach, only this time I went back to our second year, to the Forbidden Forest that time I was attacked by the Allseyer and his cronies. I stopped my grandfather from abducting me and…"

The girl trailed off. Rachel was trying very hard to look supportive and concerned, but Leshia knew her best friend's face better than she herself did. She knew the disbelief in those usually trusting eyes. She knew Rachel thought she was mad.

"Oh what's the use?" Leshia grumbled furiously and she thrust the curtains open before climbing out of bed. "I'm not mad, but there's absolutely no way for me to prove it to you."

With this she was gone, quickly grabbing her dressing gown, towel and wash things before fleeing the room to join the shower queue down in the common room below. Rachel watched her leave with a worried frown on her face. Within moments she was joined by Katie, who was rubbing at her eyes tiredly.

"What did you do to Leesh?" the raven-haired girl asked curiously.

"Nothing!" Rachel complained and she let her eyes fall to the leaf-strewn bed at the same time that Katie noticed the forest debris.

"And what the hell is all this?"

Rachel sighed and she turned the pine needle over in her fingers for a few moments before she let it drop onto the bed.

"I'm really quite worried about that friend of ours you know."

XXX

That morning over breakfast Leshia sat silently chewing on the corner of a piece of toast. When asked a direct question she would answer quite readily, but she certainly wasn't initiating any discussions of any kind. Rachel felt rotten about not believing her story and wished that she could dispel the doubt and tell her best friend that everything was going to be okay, she believed her crackpot stories and she wanted to help her understand what was going on. Try as she might though, she couldn't get the words to sound anything other than forced even when they were spoken within the confines of her own mind. If she couldn't convince herself, she would never convince Leshia.

Katie had been giving Rachel pointed glares across the table. She had badgered her cousin to tell her why Leshia's bed and been full of pine needles and why the blonde girl had stormed off, but Rachel had refused to talk about it. She may not have believed their friend, but she didn't want Katie jumping to conclusions and beginning to assume that all the trauma Leshia had endured the last few years had done something to her brain. After the last time Leshia had told them she had travelled through time Katie had had some pretty scary things to say about it in private; mainly, that Leshia was becoming a bit unhinged. Rachel refused to believe this was the case and so had kept quiet. Much to Katie's annoyance.

Luckily for the friends, they were about to receive a distraction worthy of tearing them all from their sombre moods. With the flutter of hundreds of wings, the post owls swept into the great hall bringing with them all manner of parcels and goodies for the pupils of Hogwarts. As usual, the Daily Prophet landed heavily on the table in front of Katie and most pupils in the nearby vicinity turned to stare at it. Large glaring letters jumped out at them all:

_The Dark Rising has only just begun_

While beneath this a smaller headline clamoured for space:

_Three Death Eaters captured!_

Leshia instantly snapped out of her trance and sidled closer to Katie so that she might look over the raven-haired girl's shoulder as she pulled the paper forwards and opened it quickly onto a large double spread plastered with the faces of three grim men. Finding it difficult to see, Rachel disappeared from her bench under the table. After a few moments she reappeared on the other side, pushing a disgruntled Nicola away from Katie so that she could see squeeze onto the bench at the bespectacled girl's other side. In silence the three best friends read the article.

All around the hall an unusual hush had overcome the pupils as one by one copies of the paper were being dropped along the tables. Once Leshia had finished reading the article she looked up to see her peers were all crowding together in small groups, their eyes trained solely on the papers on their tables.

Her gaze slid to Slytherin and with a brow lowered in suspicion she watched as Damian Allseyer frantically turned the pages of his copy of the paper. Though it wasn't immediately obvious to everyone, Leshia knew her enemy well enough to see that he was afraid.

"Afraid of what Allseyer?" she whispered darkly.

"What was that?" Rachel piped up and she tore her eyes from the fearsome faces of the Death Eaters. Leshia grinned and shook her head.

"Never mind."

"Can you believe this?" the redhead was continuing excitedly. "I can't believe they've actually captured new Death Eaters. I just can't! Your dad was right Leesh, they're swearing them in again, even though Voldemort's still a pile of dust."

"Don't be so flippant about it Rachel," Katie's admonishing tone came and seconds later the girl had appeared from behind the paper. She seemed stern. "This is very bad news!"

"It's not like we didn't know about them already," Leshia countered evenly. "In our Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons you all accept that there are new Death Eaters being sworn in, so why should it come as a surprise now? I'm glad they've caught three of them. Maybe they can tell us who all the others are and we can get rid of them in one foul swoop."

Katie frowned firmly at the blonde girl, but Leshia paid her no attention. Instead she glanced up to the teachers' table to see her father stirring his coffee with one hand and reading the paper with the other. It was a sight more familiar than most to the fifth year girl and it filled her with a sense of ease. While all around her the pupils of the school were whispering frantically to each other about the dark news the Prophet had delivered to them all that morning, just the sight of Draco going about his usual morning routine stilled any fear Leshia might have developed.

What did come as a surprise to the girl however, was that he was reading a page towards the back of the paper. He didn't seem too interested in the breaking news that had taken up at least four double spreads at the beginning of the paper. Come to think of it, he hadn't been mentioned in the story. And he hadn't been missing lately; Leshia had seen him herself over dinner last night. The blonde girl frowned now. It would seem that for the first time in her whole life, her father hadn't been the one to solve the case and had not been involved in the capture of the dangerous criminals. Remembering the events of last year and the suspicion Minister Crayik now held for Draco, it oughtn't to have come as such a surprise, but somehow it still did.

"Why are you glaring at Professor Sprout Leesh?" Rachel's curious voice broke through Leshia's reverie. The blonde girl blinked and realised that her gaze had slipped down the table and she had indeed been staring straight at the Herbology professor. Thankfully the stout little woman hadn't noticed.

"In a world of my own there," Leshia laughed and she smiled at Rachel to show that for now she was ready to be friendly once more and try and forget about that morning's events. Instant relief spread over Rachel's face and she beamed at her friend.

"Come on you two, let's get going. I want to get to Runes as early as we can so I can hand in this essay. It weighs a ton!" Katie spoke up cheerily and as though to prove her point she lifted her satchel onto the table with a thud.

"Do you know what Katie, I reckon the weight of your bag's got more to do with those gigantic Potions books you're lugging around, not your Runes essay," Rachel countered amusedly. "Besides, why are you even got them on you now? We don't have potions till the end of the day."

"Oh don't get her started," Leshia laughed and she quickly jumped to her feet, the Prophet rolled up and tucked under her arm. Over at the teachers' table her father was starting to get up. "Look I'll catch up with you two outside Runes."

With this the blonde girl was gone. Within seconds she had casually walked up to the teachers' table. So casually in fact, that only Draco looked up and noticed her. In a silent communication of eyebrow wiggles and head jerks Leshia managed to convey to her father that she wanted to speak to him. With an amused grin on his face Draco nodded and followed the girl out of the great hall into the entrance hall.

"Something the matter my dearest?" Draco asked as soon as they were away from prying ears. Leshia wheeled on him with a slight glare, urging him not to carry on with the endearing nicknames when her peers might be listening. Quickly she pulled the paper out from under her arm and lifted it up. The three grim faces of the Death Eaters stared up at Draco with menacing scowls.

"You didn't have anything to do with this did you?" Leshia asked, her eyes wide and concerned. Draco continued to stare at the men for a moment, before he looked up and caught his daughter's worried gaze. For a moment denial lingered on his tongue, before he shook his head with a sigh.

"I can't really talk to you about that sweetheart, you know I can't," he told the girl quietly. Leshia frowned and dropped the paper to her side.

"The thing is dad, it says they were caught yesterday evening and well, you know, you were at home. I'm just confused. Aren't you normally at the centre of all of this sort of stuff?"

Draco stared at the girl for a long time. In many ways Leshia knew more about him than any other person alive. She knew more of his dark history than even Hermione and yet unwaveringly she had stood by his side, through even the darkest time of her life. He owed her something. He owed her more than a complete denial, but his hands were tied.

He had stalled too long.

"Dad? You didn't have anything to do with this did you?" the girl persisted.

"No, not this time," Draco replied with a sad smile. "But that doesn't mean that I didn't know about them."

"So Crayik's cut you out?" Leshia asked boldly. "But you're still fighting them, just not with Crayik. Does that mean the Order of the…"

Draco's face had changed and the sight of that somewhat fierce urgent look in her father's eyes meant Leshia's tongue stopped working. She clamped her mouth shut and smiled charmingly.

"Fine," she grumbled. "I get it, you don't want to talk about it."

"What I'm worried about Leshia, is why you want to know," her father complained brusquely. "You know how I feel about you getting yourself involved in all of this. You know that I'm not the only one Minister Crayik suspects of being involved in the dark world. I want you to stay out of all this. There is nothing you can do to help. You're a schoolgirl, it's time you started acting like it."

The words stung Leshia and she hung her head slightly. Yes, she was just a schoolgirl, but that wasn't all she was. Feeling hurt, she turned from her father, ready to head off to her Runes lesson. Draco bit the insides of his cheeks feeling guilty for the way the conversation had ended, but he didn't call the girl back. He would do anything to protect her and if it meant being cruel to her to get her to distance herself from the sordid world he had unwittingly thrust her into then it would have to be done.

Once she had taken a few steps Leshia paused and she turned around to stare sadly at her father.

"I know I'm a schoolgirl, but I'm also a Malfoy and because of it I'm lumped in with this lot." Here she lifted the paper. The three scowls glared out at Draco. "At least Crayik thinks so. I didn't get myself involved in all this dad. _You_ got me involved and don't you forget it."

With this the girl turned and walked away, a cool anger bubbling away in the pit of her stomach. She knew why her father was acting this way, she knew he was trying to protect her, but a part of her was furious that he couldn't see she was now nearly sixteen years old. No, she wasn't an adult yet, but she didn't feel like a child either, so why did he have to treat her like one? In a year she would be of age. Would he treat her differently then?

'Probably not,' she grumbled inwardly as she stalked up a flight of stairs two at a time. By the time she had reached the Runes classroom a long line of pupils had gathered. Katie and Rachel were near the front and by the time Leshia had joined them she had forced away her negative feelings towards her father. Katie was clutching a thick sheaf of neatly bound parchments close to her chest and it seemed that Rachel was mocking her about it.

"Are you going to fling that at him the moment we set foot inside?" Leshia asked curiously, nodding to the raven-haired girl's essay. Katie rolled her eyes.

"The sooner I can hand this in the sooner I can breath a sigh of relief," she stated determinedly. "This has been, without fail, the worst homework I have ever had to do."

"Ooh careful Katie," Rachel piped up. "It might hear you!"

"Oh shut up Rachel," the girl's cousin grumbled. "Where's yours then eh? Probably in a crumpled heap at the bottom of your bag?"

"I'll have you know it's nestling safely inside my charms textbook. You may think I don't really give a rat's arse about homework, and generally I think I'd agree with you, but this essay has been the bane of my life for the last two weeks. So I'm not likely to let it get squished in the bottom of my bag am I?"

For a moment Katie beamed at her cousin with pride, but before she could express her feelings the door to the classroom eked open and out peered the anxious gaze of Professor Tripper. Within seconds he'd withdrawn into the safety of his classroom leaving the fifth years waiting outside to file in. They took their seats quietly, many of them clutching at thick essays in a similar manner to Katie. There was a bated silence while the meek man at the front of the room turned to his blackboard and started writing up the names of three new Rune families in a messy scrawl. He seemed not to notice the confused glances his pupils were casting one another. After he'd finished writing on the whiteboard the teacher turned around and actually took a step back at the mutinous gazes his pupils were casting him.

"Er, yes, well um, today," he stammered and then paused again as several boys at the back turned to each other whispering. "Uh, I say, please pay attention. Today we will be um, starting work on three new rune families…"

Silas trailed off again and scratched the back of his greasy head. He was used to the slightly hostile expressions his pupils tended to greet him with, but this deep mutiny was different. As he looked from angry face to angry face he started to tremble slightly. Why were they staring at him like that?

"Sir?"  
That voice! Anyone but her.

"Sir?"

The girl sounded more persistent. He wouldn't we able to ignore her. Begrudgingly Silas Tripper slid his gaze onto the amused expression on Alecia Malfoy's face. Her hand was held lazily in the air, while her head was cocked to the side curiously.

"Yes Miss Malfoy?" Tripper replied quietly.

"Aren't you going to ask for our homework sir" the girl asked cheerily and then added, when she saw the blank expression on her teacher's face, "You set it for today sir. Two weeks ago. Do you remember sir?"

"Oh," Tripper managed. "Did I?"

The reaction from the class was a subtle one, but to the teacher it was as though an explosion had gone off in the room. All across the room the tense postures the pupils had been holding collapsed and several of them dropped their heads down on their desks. Quiet groans escaped from every corner of the room and the frantic whispering from the boys at the back took a decidedly furious tone. The words 'pillock' and 'idiot' seemed to be featuring quite regularly as well.

What was worse than all this however, far worse, was the gleeful smile that had materialised on Alecia Malfoy's face. It was a smile that spoke more than words ever could and it made Tripper feel an inch tall.

"We've all worked really hard on this essay sir," Katie now spoke up, anger lacing her usually mild voice.

"Well all right then," the teacher finally spoke, mustering an ounce of strength. "Please could you ah, bring your essays up at the end of the lesson and place them er, on my desk before you leave. Yes. Right then, onto um, today's lesson."

As he turned back to his blackboard Silas Tripper let out a tremulous breathe. He could sense her smug gaze boring into the back of his head. How he wished he could muster the strength to face her, to put her in her place and stop this ridiculous power she held over him.

But no, he was powerless to fight her. Alecia Malfoy ought to be feared. Who knew what she was capable of or what path she would take?

XXX

**End of Part IV**


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